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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/24042025">i know i've kissed you before (but i didn't do it right)</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/ask_the_birds/pseuds/ask_the_birds'>ask_the_birds</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Portrait de la jeune fille en feu | Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2019)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Demeter - freeform, F/F, Greek Mythology - Freeform, Medieval Europe, Rollerskating, Tudor Europe, cursed lovers au, hecate - Freeform, lesbians through the ages, shakespearean england, there's only onscreen death in chapter one</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-05-28</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-12</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-18 02:36:09</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Mature</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>7</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>47,574</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/24042025</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/ask_the_birds/pseuds/ask_the_birds</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>before they met as painter and subject in france, they met as a goddess and a priestess. Since then, they've been finding their way back to each other.<br/>Or, Marianne and Héloïse fall in love over and over again.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Héloïse/Marianne (Portrait of a Lady on Fire)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>79</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>250</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Eleusis, Greece, 800 BCE, or, Melete and Hebe Fall in Love</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Disclaimers:<br/>Please read the tags there is death and grieving and endless sorrow etc.<br/>Because the idea is a bunch of iterations of these gals throughout history, every "rebirth" has them with different names. The first letter always corresponds. (ex. Héloïse = Hebe, Marianne = Melete)<br/>Also, they might seem a bit out of character, but because their upbringing and the time periods change them on a base level I sort of couldn't avoid that? I tried to keep the same basic traits, but that comes through more in some stories than in others.<br/>Obviously this'll take a while since every chapter is basically a self-contained "life" but they're all different and so i hope you read them anyway. Enjoy!</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Melete is born small, pink, and squalling. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mother faints only moments after her birth, and so she is handed to her older sister, Lydia. Though only four years old, it is easy for Lydia to hold her baby sister. That is how small Melete is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As she grows, more anomalies arise. She grows into a pale, sickly child, with wide, dark eyes set into the white of her skin like onyx into stone. Her arms refuse to grow plump, her cheeks will not flush, and running exhausts her. Her observable strangeness might be why her personality is so peculiar; she is quiet, more so than even normal girls, who are taught silence at a young age.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is also the cause of her mother’s death. Inadvertently, of course. She cannot know that she gives her mother the sickness that ruins her. Her father senses it, though. This much is obvious from how much time he spends avoiding her, and it is not lost on Melete that she is unwanted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The gods observe the child.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate is wary of her. Children who kill their mothers can often possess strange power, many turning brutal and cold. Demeter, however, is almost charmed by her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter has a soft spot for orphans and unloved children. Her daughter gone from her, she has a habit of picking and choosing mortals to bestow her love to. Melete is chosen at random, but maybe, Hecate thinks, because she reminds Demeter of Persephone when she returns from the Underworld. Sickly, and pale, with dismal eyes and a perennially closed mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In short, half-dead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Her days are so dark,” Demeter says, when Hecate decides to ask what Demeter believes she likes Melete for. “Every day, in the dark. Alone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate wouldn’t dare ask what Demeter thinks she could do to help her. They can both see very clearly what Melete’s future is like, a bleak marriage into a bleak family. Loveless, until the end of her short, scrawny life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But in her thirteenth year, Demeter does interfere. She has the head priestess of her temple at Eleusis have a vision that Melete should be her successor. Her father is happy to hand her over, happy to keep his meager dowry and focus on his other children. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Hecate visits Demeter between her own duties, she will sometimes see flashes of Melete’s life, as Demeter observes. She sees her stumble in the role of acolyte, struggling with the complex rituals of worship. She watches as Melete changes from a scrawny girl to a scrawny young woman, no more pink and no more plump than she was as a child. Hecate sits by Demeter’s side as they watch her sleeping or eating.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is still alone, always alone. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The last time Hecate sees her like this, Melete is sixteen years old. It is a miracle that Demeter has kept her from being married so long, but it isn’t exactly hard. Seperated from her father, she’s no more than a skinny, pale girl with overgrown hair and mysterious eyes. Hecate wants to stay away, too.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Hebe was an excellent cupbearer, and now she’s a terrible wife. “Terrible” is Hebe’s favorite human word, and it is one of the words that Heracles sometimes uses to describe her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are terrible,” he’ll say, when shadows come over his eyes and he misses his old wife, the one he killed. He thinks of her often, and often compares her loyalty to Hebe’s. Hebe is uncomfortable with the fact that she is </span>
  <em>
    <span>worse </span>
  </em>
  <span>than the first wife. She thinks he likes her even less than the second wife. The one who </span>
  <em>
    <span>killed</span>
  </em>
  <span> him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe can’t forget </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> anymore than Heracles can forget that she is bad at providing him comfort in the bedchamber. This makes them poorly matched. What can they do for that, though?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They reside in a house suspended in a non-existent field of lilies, so neither of them can forget their ties to Hera. The house is made to look like the one Heracles resided in during his life, but it always looks vague and watery to Hebe, as if she can’t see anything but through a mist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe can easily leave their not-real house, because it is not real. She can go to Olympus. She can even pour Zeus’s wine, as she once did. That is unappealing, though. She dislikes the way the other goddesses look at her, though she is not sure what she did to deserve it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Earth, though. Earth fascinates Hebe. Humans fascinate Hebe, especially humans that haven’t killed their wives.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe goes walking on earth in the form of a girl. That is her only form; as goddess of youth, she can not make herself appear older than seventeen. She feels that Heracles sees her like a child, always. This displeases him, which does not surprise her. Everything she does displeases him.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heracles has many complaints about Hebe. They include: “you are terrible” “you are so meek” “stay out of my way” and “you do not care anything about my needs”.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe isn’t going to lie to him, so she stays quiet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She goes to Earth, a spot with brushland and small trees. There, she lays in the yellow-green grass, and pretends to breathe in and out. She listens to the wind. Zephyr whispers to her that her body is lovely, and she ignores him. She is listening now for something else. She waits, and hears something- a human approaches.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe sits up, fearing it is a mortal man with ill intent, but instead she finds that it is a girl. She looks very different from Hebe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello,” Hebe calls to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl jumps, like she’s a spooked animal, and runs the opposite direction. Her dark hair streams out behind her in a tangle. Hebe can see her for a long time, running down the hill and towards the pillars of a temple. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>For some reason, this stays with Hebe. She is disgruntled, a bit, by the reaction. After all, she’s no god of fearful power. She is either cooed at and praised or completely ignored, and the girl, doing neither of those things, has broken this pattern. Two days pass in the not-house where Heracles is completely silent. With no need to eat or sleep, he is sometimes prone to sitting and thinking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Occasionally, he cries.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It doesn’t matter if Hebe is there to witness this, so she goes. She goes back to the hill and lays down again, and after an hour she hears approaching footsteps, the same as before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl comes. Hebe doesn’t move her body, but she knows the girl has lain next to her, a few feet away. They stare at the sky, which is, today, hazy grey-blue. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello,” Hebe breathes, quietly, this time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is no response from the girl. Hebe doesn’t speak, and the girl stays. After about an hour, she goes away again, silently. Hebe looks at her face, though, and catalogues her features. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is thin and long, her nose jutting out and her mouth pulled down. Her eyes are too wide for this small face, and too dark. She is like nothing Hebe has seen before, and that again makes Hebe confused and intrigued.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The same thing happens the next day. After about thirty minutes of laying motionless, Hebe props herself up on her elbows and asks, “what’s your name?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl says nothing. Hebe, feeling ashamed of her own anger, stands and looks at her from above. “Do you know that I am a goddess?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl doesn’t even look at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am wife to Heracles. Do you know him?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe the girl was blind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hera bore me without a man’s help. She bore me with the aid of a lettuce plant. And you are mortal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She could be deaf, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That makes Hebe feel ashamed enough that her anger dissolves slightly. She sits, again, and sinks her toes into the grass.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am immortal. I will never grow old. I cannot even appear to grow old. This is how I will stay, forever.” Hebe rips some grass up with her feet and wiggles her toes. The action is so humanly pleasing. “I am very good at bearing cups. I was so good that they gave me to Heracles to be his wife.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She sits for longer in the silence with the girl, and then she leaves. She goes back to the not-house, and is dismayed to find that Heracles is raging. As he does every few months, he destroys the not-house, moving through each room and smashing and tearing and breaking with his godly strength. Hebe stays and makes sure he is not crushed in his grief, though it wouldn’t matter. This is his immortality- he can no more die than she can live.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After he is done, he sits in the center of the nest of damage and stares at nothing. Hebe helps him to the bed and lays him down, but he does not need to sleep and so all he does is stare. She is glad he doesn’t ask for her to try and please him again- it has never worked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next day, she returns to her hill. The girl is already there. Hebe decides that she must be deaf and blind, because she doesn’t register anything on her face when Hebe comes to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe tells her many things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her words come easily in the silence. No one has ever let Hebe speak before- it is beautifully freeing. She speaks of everything, on every facet of her immortal life. She speaks of Heracles, and Zeus and their cruelty. She tells the girl never to approach a wild animal that she finds particularly beautiful, for it could be a god in a clever disguise. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She tells her what she likes about the earth. “The sky is nice,” she says. “There are so many shades of blue. There is no color for the sky in Olympus, but it is so much more regal to see it this way. I wish I could take it and put it in my mouth. It might taste cold.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she runs out of things to say, they lay in silence until Hebe leaves. She goes and attends her husband in his never ending grief. She thinks about the sharpness of her girl’s nose.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her girl. That is how she comes to think of her, not because she believes she is her possession but because she cannot call her a friend. In fact, sometimes she finds herself unreasonably angry at her silence, angry that she won’t reveal herself as Hebe does to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But still, she returns.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is in the third month of this, perhaps, that the girl speaks. They are laying in silence. Hebe, in fact, hasn’t spoken since she arrived. She’s feeling peevish and annoyed, more cramped in her body than usual, and so she is not ready when the girl says, “I am hungry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is completely still. She’s afraid to even blink. She’s never heard her speak before- her voice is small and sort of hoarse. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We will eat,” the girl says, and gets up. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe follows her as she sets off, in a direction she has never come from and Hebe has never seen her take. They walk over patches of dirt that are raw and rocky, the wind blowing their dresses against their legs. Hebe is fascinated with the girl’s way of moving, though she would never be able to describe it. </span>
  <em>
    <span>This is how a mortal walks</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she thinks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They go to a stream and sit beside it. The girl pulls plump red berries off of the bushes by the water and dips her bare feet into the stream. Under the water, her skin looks even paler. Hebe pulls off a few berries and eats them, revelling in their sharp taste. She has no love for mortal food, as it is too ugly compared to ambrosia, but she decides to like them for their bitterness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Though she has revealed this place, the girl still takes her time to speak again. By the time she has, Hebe has already dipped her own feet into the water and felt the alien sensation of it running over them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you eat, when you are a goddess?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe tries not to show how excited she is. “I do not need to. But I do sometimes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl nods sagely. “Like now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you sleep?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sometimes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But in all other respects, you are like me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe feels a hot flare of anger; it doesn’t matter who it is, she never wants to be compared to a mortal. When she looks over, however, she is startled to find the girl is looking directly at her. Her dark eyes suddenly remind Hebe of the moon, luminous and wild. She had thought of them as the inverse of light, but she is now sure that they </span>
  <em>
    <span>are </span>
  </em>
  <span>light, in a way. Her anger is momentarily abetted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl looks down at her feet. “Can you go anywhere in the world?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where have you gone?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Places with no names,” she says. No names in their language. She has walked through forests that are so wet and green that they seem like they were drowning. She has seen snow, too, so much that it seems like the only thing in the world. So many places. But every place is cramped, really. The world is not wide enough for her, and every place is the same cramped house with her husband crying in the other room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You never talk about them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe raises one foot out of the water. “You never talk.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have nothing to say.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe sighs. “Of course you do. You live. You live </span>
  <em>
    <span>somewhere</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I live by the temple,” the girl says, automatically but dispassionately. “Of Demeter. I am a priestess of Demeter.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe waits to fill the sting of rejection, a mortal who worships another goddess, but nothing comes. She watches as one of the girl’s hands searches the sparse grass of the stream’s bank for something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What is your name?” Hebe asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl finds a rock, and holds it in her palm. “Melete,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe shivers with the knowledge. Melete. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you never speak to me?” Hebe says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I told you, I have nothing to say.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe watches her toss the rock back into the water. “That does not matter to me.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The sun beats down on their heads, but the water is cool, and Hebe chooses to feel it all. Melete has many things to say, as it happens. The many anecdotes of everyday life. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She learns that Melete likes to sleep, that she sometimes gets so exhausted that she feels like she can’t move. She learns that she likes to be alone, to discover things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are not alone when you are with me,” Hebe points out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That is different.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How is it different?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not know,” Melete says, calmly. “Do you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe doesn’t answer, and lets Melete continue. She tells her that she doesn’t want to be married, and that she sometimes wants to dress as a boy and run away. “I do not like being touched,” she says. “I think a husband would touch me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He would,” Hebe says. “Do not get married.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I cannot help it,” Melete says, and lays back across the bank. She closes her eyes and rests her hands on her stomach. One day, Hebe thinks, her belly will be swollen with child. She will be a mother, and then she will grow stooped and old. As a goddess of youth, it makes her afraid, just as it makes her curious. What would it feel like to live in a dying body? How was the weight of the suddenness of death not crushing this girl, every minute of every day?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete says, “Would you take me to Olympus?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Hebe says. She doesn’t have the power, and even if she did she thinks that Melete’s dark hair and ivory skin would be familiar to Heracles. She knows that he despises her pale hair and eyes, and she knows enough to translate what that means. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where can I go?” Melete asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe bites the inside of her cheek. “I will help you find a good husband.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That is all they say. They lay in the sun by the stream, and then Hebe walks with Melete back to the hill. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good bye, Melete,” she says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete doesn’t say anything back, but she looks at Hebe, and she knows what she means.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Did you know that the goddess of youth is friends with Melete?” Demeter asks Hecate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Hecate says, annoyed that it’s the first thing out of Demeter’s mouth after months without seeing each other. “Why would I know that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter looks down, moodily. They are in her chambers, and they’re material today. Demeter sits at a stool by the window- Hecate knows that she can see whatever she wants from this view. Hecate comes next to her and watches Melete laying in her bed. Her eyes are wide open, and she stares at nothing in her dark room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They see each other every day,” Demeter says. “They meet on a hill outside the temple.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter’s brow is furrowed, her lips tightly pressed together. Hecate knows Demeter is not easily jealous, but she isn’t sure what Demeter means by “friends”. She has only ever heard of gods going to the mortal world for sex, or sometimes to reward mortals that are particularly devoted.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?” Hecate asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter shakes her head. She’s beautiful in the way the earth is beautiful as it breaks open in spring. Hecate sometimes sees depictions of her as a crone, the wasted mother of a gloriously young earth, but she finds them so strangely off the mark. Demeter is as the earth is: lush and healthy and giving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Does Hebe disguise herself?” Hecate could understand that. Some goddesses long for the freedom on earth, she knows, and she also knows that Heracles was notoriously poor at treating his women.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. She revealed herself almost the first day they met,” Demeter says. “It is hard to understand.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, what do they do? Worship?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter winces. The idea of her priestess, especially a priestess that she has had such a personal hand in providing shelter and safety for, worshipping another goddess is abhorrent. It would be the highest disrespect towards her.  “No,” she says. “They talk. And they go around town.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Doing what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter frowns downward, harder. “She said she would find her a husband,” she says. “I am not sure when she plans on doing so.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>As Hebe had done, Melete revealed herself. Bit by bit. She was not so talkative, not so excited to complain to someone, but she showed Hebe what she didn’t say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come with me,” she’d say, and they’d go. Into town, doing shopping together. Melete leant Hebe a shawl to cover herself but they still had to move fast so no one would notice her bare feet and her unnaturalness. Hebe loves the mortal market, loves to walk amongst the mortals there and have no one know what she is. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete leads her, listening to Hebe tell her how fascinating she finds everything. She marvels at a peach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It has small hairs,” she says, and Melete smiles in a way that strongly suggests that Hebe is not so much a genius for figuring this out. “It is warm. It feels alive.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Here,” Melete says, and takes one of Hebe’s hands. In a strange gesture, she touches it to her own cheek and looks at her. Her expression is neutral. “Does it not feel the same?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe has never touched a mortal before. Melete is remarkably warm, and Hebe lets out a single laugh, unable to speak for a moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you two made of the same thing?” Hebe asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are the one who would know better than I,” Melete says, and she smiles just in time for Hebe to realize it’s a joke. Melete buys the peach and lets Hebe eat it on their way back. Hebe thinks it is so much better to taste than to touch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete is giving her a taste for human food. She brings her bread and fruits, and tells Hebe what she thinks of each of them as they eat. She is most talkative when she’s teaching Hebe something. Hebe learns that she doesn’t know half as much as she thought she did. The world is a vast place, and she’s certain that most of it has not come from a god’s hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Very rarely, Melete will tell Hebe something so deeply personal that it shocks her. “My father did not love me,” Melete says, randomly. She doesn’t sound sorrowful as she says it, just matter-of-fact. They are sitting side by side, peach juice drying on their hands. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe, as she becomes around Melete when Melete reveals herself just a little more than usual, goes quiet and still.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is because I killed my mother,” Melete says. “I was born wrong. I think I was meant to be born dead, but I dragged what she had with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am sure that is not true,” Hebe says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have been waiting for a god to come and fetch me and drag me to Hades.” Melete tilts her head, and her hair falls over one shoulder. “That is what I thought you were. I had no idea you would talk to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thanatos, talking about her husband,” Hebe says, and grins. “That must have been strange.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was strange,” Melete says. “I was angry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Angry?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wanted for you to take me away. But I was left alive every day. It made me so gravely disappointed in you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe feels suddenly off balance. Her stomach rolls inside her, which it’s never done before, and she has trouble swallowing. “You wanted to die?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete shrugs. “Yes. Is that so hard to believe?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Death</span>
  </em>
  <span> is hard to believe.” Hebe shudders. “To go away to nothingness forever is an awful thing. Oblivion. A muffling quiet, until eternity. No thought or feeling, just </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasting</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You never want to escape your husband? Your duties?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I come to you to do that,” Hebe explains. It slips out of her mouth before she can stop it- she glances nervously at Melete and finds that she is smiling, just slightly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do the same,” she says. “I started to think of you as a blessing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe doesn’t know what to say to that. She watches Melete brush her hair away from her face. “A reason to live,” Melete explains calmly, always so calm, “instead of someone who had come to kill me. When I took you to that stream, I had decided that you had been sent to reawaken my heart.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe gapes at her. Melete fills the silence, saying, “I was so lonely. Every minute was cold for me. When I run, I sometimes have a sudden shortness of breath in my lungs, a panic. I felt like that almost constantly. And your words and company soothed me. More than you could understand.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I…” Hebe begins, but finds she has nothing to say. Instead of speaking, she places her hand on Melete’s arm. “Melete. I cherish your company, as well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete looks at Hebe. Her face is always just slightly blank, almost untouched by the feelings she has beneath the surface, but now Hebe can see her contentment. It is focused in her small mouth, the curve of her eyebrows.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Slowly, Hebe moves towards her and kisses her. It is so gentle she can barely feel it, as if she is trying to drink from a pool without disturbing the surface. When she pulls away, Melete’s eyes are closed. She seems like she is searching for something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What a thing,” she says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am sorry,” Hebe says immediately.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete shakes her head. Her eyes don’t open. “Perhaps I am dreaming.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a gentle hand, she cups Hebe’s cheek again and pulls their faces together again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe feels guilt for it only when she is home. When Heracles hunches over himself on the bed, fists clenched, and she touches his back tentatively, she is reminded what she has been asked and why. She has a duty, after all, to him. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It only serves to remind her that she must also find Melete a husband, to keep her safe. She begins looking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe does not often use godly powers. All she can do is keep people young, really, and it seems such a useless skill that she’s never expended it on anyone. But there is a sort of godly reserve, for, say, appearing on earth, or finding things out. Hebe doesn’t truly understand it, but she can dip into that and search Eleusis for a potential mate for Melete. This is what she does laying motionless besides Heracles in bed. When she is on earth, she and Melete do anything and everything. It is enchanting, to run with Melete. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They never let their hands go, always holding each other. Hebe runs her hands over Melete’s sides, and Melete tangles her fingers in Hebe’s hair. There is no reason for it save the giddy burst it unleashes in Hebe’s stomach and the small, almost secret smile of Melete. They kiss often but talk more, reveal so much about each other that Hebe is uncertain where she ends and Melete begins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is mortal, she reminds herself when she goes home. Melete is a mortal, no matter how lovely, and there is no point to being involved. But Hebe cannot hold on to those thoughts, and they slip away from her like minnows between her fingers. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The only time those thoughts ever come to any fruition is the day that Hebe decides to tell Melete about her husband.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her husband-to-be. Hebe has scouted him from a dozen others, this small, joyless man that does not want a wife but will want Melete. He is broad, and does not like to look too hard or too long at anything. He will glance at Melete, and then away. He will catch none of her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe explains this while they lay in Melete’s bed. They almost never come there. Hebe is afraid to be so close to Demeter’s temple, because she doesn’t know much of Demeter. She feels it is something like a slight to enter it. But Melete tells her one day that she had dreamed of them lying side by side on her bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It felt so real,” Melete had said. “It was bestowed on me. A vision. We laid side by side, and then I saw a serpent sliding through grass.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That is all?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A very boring vision, then,” Hebe teased.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete met her eyes and kissed her in such a way that Hebe could not say no to her. They were becoming better at kissing in this way. Sometimes, Hebe admits as she lays by her husband, she imagines Melete’s mouth, soft and warm, meeting the inside of her knee, or the dip of her collarbone. Those thoughts make her shudder, confused by their intensity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In any case, Melete takes her home. Her room is small and dark, and smells of her, but there is no sign of her anywhere. There is nothing that makes Hebe believe that Melete spends her time here. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The bed is not very large- they squeeze onto it with Hebe against the wall. It is so strange, the things Hebe will do for her. Press herself against walls, and sit in dirt, and hold her, though she is so mortal and unclean.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete wraps her arms around Hebe and rests her chin against the place between her shoulder and her head. Her breath is warm against Hebe’s skin. Hebe is fascinated by Melete’s breath, especially when they kiss. Sometimes, when their lips part and they rest their foreheads against each other, she can feel it on her lips and she pretends it is she who is breathing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is where you spend your time?” Hebe asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is so small.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.” Her voice is dry, a little amused. Sometimes, she teases Hebe for her confusion. “I have trouble sleeping,” Melete says, her voice small and breathy, squeezed into the small space between them so only they can share it. “I lay and stare at my room, and think about you. If you were here, I would hold you like this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“At last.” Melete shifts, and her lips press faintly against Hebe’s ear. Hebe shakes. Such human affectations. Melete teaches her so many things. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have found you a husband,” Hebe says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete pulls her head back, and it no longer touches her. “What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe sits up and twists to face her. “I have found you a husband. He is small, but he is good. You will be happiest at his side, and he will accept you well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete sits up as well, her eyes wide. She swallows, and Hebe hears it clearly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you not happy?” Hebe asks. She smiles encouragingly. “I do not think he will touch you, even. You can be friends. Or, even more distant. You would only have to bear one child, I think.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I cannot bear children,” Melete says, quickly, and Hebe stops. Melete’s face is wide open now. She is scared.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can. And you are favored by Demeter, so your pregnancy will be easy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No. It will kill me.” Melete lays down on the bed, on her back, and stares at the ceiling. Her chest rises and falls very fast. “I will die. I cannot marry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You will not die. I swear it.” Hebe touches Melete’s nose, starting to run her finger down the length of it as she has done a hundred times, but Melete turns away. “Melete,” Hebe says, confused.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not want a husband.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe wants to comfort her. She feels as if there is something large and dangerous between them now. “You need a husband.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not want one. Let us not- we should not speak of husbands.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have scared you, with tales of Heracles,” Hebe realizes aloud. “No, do not think of that. This man will be good. You will be friends. You may even come to love him.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I already know that I will not!” Melete says, louder than Hebe has ever heard her speak. She tosses her head further down, into her bed. “Hebe,” she says. “I will not love anyone else.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sadness flashes through her. She doesn’t know why. Hebe’s heart stills- no, it cannot be her heart. She is not mortal, she reminds herself furiously. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do not say that,” Hebe says, as comfortingly as she can with the weight of Melete’s words on her. She will not love. She does not love. “You- it will come to something good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not </span>
  <em>
    <span>want </span>
  </em>
  <span>it to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is so stubborn. Hebe wants to make her understand .“Well, he will not touch you. You can live your life-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete sits up and seizes Hebe’s face in her hands. “It is not that I do not want to be touched,” she hisses, deadly and furious. Her eyes brim with tears, and they become pools of moonlight here, even in darkness. “I can not bear the thought of touching anyone but you. I can not bear the thought of loving anyone but you. Are you a fool? Are you blind?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe’s mouth falls open. Melete’s eyes are desperate, searching her with their fullest intensity. Then, fast as a gadfly swerving away from a swatting hand, Melete releases her and stumbles off the bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s lucky that she is clumsy, lucky that her feet trip each other, or else Hebe might not have enough time to regain her breath, her lungs, and say, “Melete, wait!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Perhaps there is some godly command in her voice, because Melete stops. She doesn’t look at her, though. She keeps her face to the door. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Melete…” Hebe says, grasping for the right words.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Could you bear it?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe has never considered what it would mean, to have Melete in a man’s arms. She had been thinking of her own life, her freedom to go where she pleased.`There was never a thought given to Melete assuming the role of a wife, and leaving her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Leaving her!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nothing has ever left her before, not really.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her position as cupbearer was never something she had particularly cared for. She was just good at it. She had never found comfort in day to day life, not before this. Not before she had Melete.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Melete…” she says. She gets off the bed and goes to her, sliding her hand onto her shoulder blade. Melete shudders, but Hebe knows it is not in disgust. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Had Hebe known happiness before her?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Had she known love?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Putting words to these thoughts was frightening. Perhaps this was the influence of Melete, Hebe thinks as she presses her forehead to Melete’s hair. Gods do not have to think- their time is infinite, and conclusions have no deadline. But for a girl who dips her feet in the water- for a girl who eats peaches-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe puts her arms around Melete , clasping them over her stomach. She breathes deeply, taking in her smell. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Melete…” she says, and then, “I have been selfish.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete trembles.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have never considered what it would mean to be separated from you,” Hebe says. “I have- I cannot imagine existence without you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete says nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have never known love,” Hebe whispers. “I did not know. I did not know it would be like this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, Melete says, “What can I do?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe doesn’t know what she’s referring to. She releases Melete, circling her so they stand face to face. This mortal girl looks at her with moon-dark eyes. This mortal girl looks at her like she would look at another mortal girl, who she loves. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will be your husband,” Hebe whispers. She kisses Melete’s wet cheeks and pushes her hair away from her face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What kind of husband will you be?” Melete asks. Her voice is shaking, but her hands reach for Hebe’s face. She touches her cheeks with gentle fingers, touches the corners of her eyes and the lobes of her ears. She touches her like she wants to know every part of her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A good husband,” Hebe promises. “You will want for nothing. We will live in the forest, and eat berries every day. You will drink honeyed wine at every meal.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete steps closer. Their feet slot between each other, and Hebe feels so warm, so soft she might have been made of clay. She wants to be remade in Melete’s hands, wants to be everything she needs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wants to be mortal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who will wed us?” Melete asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe touches their foreheads together. “No one,” she says. “That is alright.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you,” Melete says. Her voice is level, but Hebe does not mistake it for disinterest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you,” Hebe responds. She smiles. “Let me take you away.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete’s mouth opens slightly. “To Olympus?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Hebe says. Her smile blooms. “Another place. A place untouched by the gods.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How will we live?” Melete asks. Her arms, which have found their way around Hebe’s waist, tighten like she is afraid she might fall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not know,” Hebe says. “But we will. Live. And be happy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is afraid, then, of Melete’s face becoming blank, impassive. Instead, Melete kisses her high upon her cheek and whispers, “take me away.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They kiss then, fumbling their way back towards the bed. Never has Hebe kissed Melete with the passion she felt. It was frightening, even to her, this human feeling. But nothing frightens her when Melete’s arms are around her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe feels frantic and messy, dragging her lips from Melete’s ear to her lips to her throat, afraid that it will end suddenly, like a dream. She presses Melete’s body beneath her and feels the hard bones of her hips through her dress, the softness of her breasts against hers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete grasps Hebe’s hand away from her face and draws it down her body, to the edge of her skirt. Hebe breaks away from her mouth and looks down at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you certain?” she asks, guilt piling in her throat, certain her desires have corrupted her. “There is- it does not have to-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please,” Melete says. With her other arm she tangles her hand in Hebe’s hair and kisses her, as softly as they the first time. Her cheeks are flushed. Her eyes are full, all the joy and laughter and desire that have led to this shining through. “I want you to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe obliges her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Demeter finds Hecate wandering through Athens, unseen. She summons her, eyes burning with a fire that cannot mean anything but the worst of slights.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hera is spiteful towards the women her husband seduces, and Hestia never shows spite. Demeter is more wildly inclined. She has rages, Hecate knows, but she can be forgiving. Like the earth, there is balance, but there are never flat lines. The angles of her pain are organic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate is dragged to Demeter’s chambers, where Demeter forces her head towards the window from which they observe Demeter’s favorites.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look!” Demeter hisses.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate sees Melete, that girl Demeter finds so fascinating. She is laying in her bed, arms bracketed around herself- no. They are not her arms. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She has taken a lover,” Hecate observes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not just a lover!” Demeter practically screams. She is radiating rage, and so it feels vaguely hot. Hecate peers, and sees that the arms belong to Hebe, that quiet goddess. Heracles’s wife.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate blinks. She must have been mistaken. Perhaps they were laying together in friendship. Perhaps it was the proximity to another goddess that irked Demeter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not understand,” Hecate confesses.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter’s eyes are grey and black. Wintertime inside her. “She has taken her maidenhood,” she says. “The snake has taken the maidenhood of my priestess!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate blinks slowly, processing. Such things are not so unheard of. Many of her followers flee a life of men, for reasons like those. But for a goddess to do something like that… Even in spite, it seems unlikely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter, however, seems to have no problem believing it. Her body is dissolving, becoming the livid, non-corporeal thing that vaporizes humans with a glance. “I will go to Hera! I will kill her husband! I will-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A pause. Demeter phases back into her usual form, eyes burning viciously cold. “No,” she says. “No, she is not like a mortal. I must be clever. I must shred her carefully.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate does not like this. She looks again to their sleeping forms.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is unheard of. Goddesses do not sleep.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Melete laughs when she sees the forest. It is a massive thing, wide and as empty as Hebe could find, far away from Eleusis. She does not know the name of this place, but she finds it radiantly beautiful. The trees are tall, with short, bladed leaves. When they brown and fall off, they heap into soft piles. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is so beautiful,” Melete says. Her body is unusually animated- she runs to a tree and presses her slender hand against the bark. When she turns, her face glows. “It smells sharp.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete approaches her, and kisses her. It feels so good. To be free. To be free of Heracles, of the rest of the world. Maybe, Hebe thinks, she will become mortal. If she wills it, can it be so? It seems ridiculous, but so had laughing, for most of her existence. So had loving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We will build our house here?” Melete suggests, waving her hand at the trees. “The light will come in through the windows and wake us in the morning.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Hebe says. She can do nothing but watch her, and agree.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Here will be our table. I will greet you, and sit down to eat. We will eat our weight in berries.” Melete looks around. “Where are the berries?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe shrugs, silly with smiling. She is helpless. She is completely gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete runs to her and grabs her shoulders. “Hebe. Stay here. When I return, I will have berries for us both to eat, and we will dine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you,” Hebe says. Melete smiles at this foolishness and releases her. She dashes off to find them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe rests her body against a tree, already thinking about being mortal. She will breathe, she thinks. She will drink water. Her body will not be eternally seventeen, but grow into an old woman. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Growing old together will be joyful, she thinks. Growing old together will be a quest, every day a new leap. Perhaps there will be people here, people she will befriend. They will make a family, find an orphaned child and raise her until she is old enough to be wed. Then, she can go wherever she pleases.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe she will stay. Maybe they will have grandchildren. Maybe she and Melete will hold hands and look out at a city of their own, pure and lovely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When this dream fades, Hebe realizes that Melete has been gone for a while. She decides to look for her. Perhaps she has eaten too many berries.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is her first thought. She has eaten too many berries and has lain down to take a nap. This is what she thinks when she sees her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Love is new to Hebe. Loss is unthinkably alien.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe kneels at her side and shakes Melete’s shoulder. She has fallen in a sprawl, one of her arms over her head, her dark hair fanning out around her. Her eyes are open. Her chest is still.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Melete,” Hebe says. A pine needle has fallen across her face, and Hebe brushes it away. She holds Melete’s hand. “Melete. Have you found them?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete does not move to answer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you found them?” Hebe is startled by a raindrop- but it is not raining. Her eyes are watering, as Melete’s has. This is remarkable, she thinks, but she does not feel that this is remarkable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Melete, have you found the berries?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She watches for Melete’s mouth to move. She thinks this is a joke. Melete has never played a joke on her, and she wants badly for it to go over well. She wants to like it. She wants to laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her eyes won’t stop watering. There is a feeling in her, rising unbidden, that she does not want to feel. She rests her head on Melete’s chest and tries to breathe. But she is immortal. She is a goddess, and even if she could, she could not breathe enough for the both of them.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>The grief is slow and heavy. Hecate feels it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes, this happens. Sometimes, a tragedy is so great that it spreads to the Olympians. Hecate is not sure that is what is happening- no one else acknowledges it. Demeter comes after sinking her serpent's fangs into the ankle of Melete, and looks stony. Hecate feels it, though.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is an awful thing, to have human emotions as a god. Gods are immortal, and therefore should not feel the way humans do, not have the same rushing urges and fits of passion. Lust is allowed, because lust is fast. Lust is what is settled for between humans and gods. A god who loves a human is cursed to the most brutal fate.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After sixty years, Hecate goes to her. She is not in Greece, but in the place that will one day be called North America. Lost in the woods, isolated. When Hecate finds her, she finds her bent over Melete’s body. Hebe’s magic must have preserved it- it looks as if Melete has just fallen asleep. This unnaturalness does not bother Hecate as much as the weeping.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Gods are not meant to cry. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe has cried herself a stream- she kneels in it. Water soaks both of their dresses, their hair. Still, Melete’s body goes undecayed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate goes to Hebe and looks at her. Melete has taken from her what made her divine. While Melete looks healthier than the whole of her childhood, Hebe is decaying. Her skin is grey. Her hair is practically white.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hebe,” Hecate says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe does not stop weeping. Instead, she says, in a small voice, “Melete?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She raises her head from her lover’s chest and gazes through stringy hair at her face. She looks older than the oldest woman in the world. She is still only seventeen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will you return to Olympus?” Hecate asks. “To your husband? You have paid for your crime.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe seems to realize that the voice is not Melete. She turns and looks up, looks at Hecate. Hecate wants to run from her, run from her grief.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There will be a city,” she says. Tears stream down her face, even now. “And we will be together. Until the day I die.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks back at Melete. Water drips onto her knees. Slowly, she collapses on to her chest, so their bodies are stacked like two stones.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate’s mouth twists. She feels fear, but also pity for her. She remembers Demeter’s anger and thinks of her friend now, her friend who has forgotten it all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then you shall be,” Hecate says. She waves her hand over them, and is done with it.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Two stones sit in the middle of a stream. They are intertwined in an interesting way, as if their arms are about each other. But they will never be marvelled at, not for centuries.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, time goes on. There ceases to be “gods” when there is no need for them. No one remembers, and so no one cares. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then…</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then there is rebirth.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>If you made it this far kudos to you, I don't know if I could have done it myself lol. Thank you so much, though, I hope you enjoyed it!<br/>Okay very excited about this one, it's going to take these girls through a LOT but they'll end up happy in the end, don't worry!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. France, 1250 CE, or, Margat and Hismena Pray to God</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Summary for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
            <p>TW? There's a scene with some bullying (just like the villian pushing the main character around, calling her names, etc)- it starts with "hello Mouse" and goes until the next page break<br/>Also there's description of past murder- nothing graphic, but let it be known. Enjoy!</p>
          </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Hismena doesn’t believe in God.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No- maybe that’s not true. She does not believe in God the way the other sisters do. She does not look into the closed eyes of the statue of Jesus Christ in the chapel and feel her heart expand, or lift. When she presses her hands together and bows her head, she cannot imagine heaven.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The abbey is growing warmer. Spring came early this year, but it did along with long stretches of chilly weather that the sun did not thaw. Hismena had liked that- the robes they wear are so heavy and thick that sunny days can be unbearable. On the hottest days of the year, she staggers and sways through her duties and wrings the sweat from her hair at night. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>In summer, dreams of running from the abbey come, ideas that she will throw off her robes, her wimple and cap and veil, and flee into the forests that surround the abbey. These are so vivid she can feel the leaves snap under her bare feet, feel low-hanging branches scratch her exposed arms. She leaps over roots, scales boulders on her hands and knees, lets her limbs hit trunks and bushes until they burn. She runs until she reaches the mountains, and she never looks back until she has climbed it. Then, she is above the abbey, and can grab handfuls of the golden sun at the mountain’s peak.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she wakes, Hismena is damp with sweat in her sheets, and desperately sad. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wears the dreams on her body all day, like stains. She thinks the other sisters can see, but they have long stopped caring about her. Hismena is not like them and they know it. They are like her real sisters, lost in dreams for strong-armed husbands and many children, a happy life that will carry them into heaven. The sisters here want to know God, want to study and learn, want to work their fingers into the garden dirt and grow things.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena wishes-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena goes inside and embroiders. She’s useless at everything else, and Mother Dimia says her lines are straight and “decent” enough to work. She still has to do laundry, pray, work, but she does it all alone. Bitterness breaks in her chest like mushrooms from dead earth, and hatred burrows there, deeper and more secret.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That is where she is, the day Margat comes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The room where she embroiders is small, but made of stone and clean as anywhere else in the abbey. On one side, Hismena sits on a stool in front of a standing frame, and she works facing a window and a shelf of fabrics. Other girls weave the cloth and bring it here, casting furtive glances at Hismena. She never looks at them. She sees them, though.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Today she is working on the edges of a new piece, a tree. All the thread they have is dyed sickly brown and yellow, with just some dark red, and Hismena sews sickly trees with arching, terrifying branches. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is no door to this room, and so Hismena hears Mother Dimia approaching from afar. She can tell it’s her because no one in the abbey walks like Mother Dimia. She pays no heed to preserving any holy peace. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sister Hismena,” Mother Dimia says, and Hismena looks up. There is the mother, wimple askew, looking harassed and deeply indifferent all at once, and there is, just behind her, a shadow. “Good morning.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good morning,” Hismena says. She holds her needle tightly so she doesn’t accidentally drop it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mother Dimia peers at Hismena’s work, and frowns. She hates Hismena’s trees like no one else. Hismena thinks she can see how ugly and dead they are, while everyone else runs their hands over her tiny stitches and smiles. But the Mother doesn’t comment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There is a new Sister joining us today,” Mother Dimia says, to-the-point. “She is a skilled seamstress.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The shadow flinches into Hismena’s view, as if called. Her cheeks are pink and healthy- her family must be well off. Sometimes, young noblewomen are sent here to be preserved from the follies of youth. They do not stay long; when their families return, they return with news of a husband-to-be. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is Sister Margat.” Mother Dimia throws her hand to her side to present the girl, and then turns and leaves. She doesn’t care much for explanation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sister Margat looks very small. She’s smiling, but nervously, probably expecting someone as ripe and happy as her. Hismena looks back to her embroidery and does two more stitches, quickly, then looks back to Margat. She hasn’t moved.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello,” Margat says. Her voice is lower than Hismena was expecting, but still suitably pretty for her round, flushed face. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hello.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Embroidery?” Margat asks. Just one word. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.” Hismena readjusts on the hard wooden stool, her skirts crinkling around herself. She’s wearing the same veil and habit as Hismena, but they look crisper on Margat. She casts her eyes to the stone walls. This is dull.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” Margat says. “Then, shall I get started?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t move, and when Hismena’s eyes fall back to her she is looking expectant. Hismena slowly rises to her feet and goes to the other side of the room, pulling down some more of the blank fabric. There is never any dyed fabric for them. Behind her, Margat scrapes around for a stool.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena takes all the time in the world gathering thread and needles, dawdling to gaze at the stone wall. She imagines Margat is sitting impatiently, and she is savagely pleased, though uncertain what she thinks she’s doing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes she does this. Sometimes she is taken over by the need to be hated, because then at least she will be seen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Here,” she says, handing Margat the fabric, a hoop, and some thread. Margat accepts it all without complaint, though as soon as Hismena sits down she sets to work untangling it. Hismena has done a considerable amount of a flower before Margat is able to begin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your name is…?” Margat asks, after a silence. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hismena,” she says. She supposes Margat is deaf, for Mother Dimia had only just said as much. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hismena,” Margat repeats. Her voice seems to smooth it into something melodic. It reminds Hismena of the way her mother said ‘Blanche’. “What a pretty name.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>You are so pretty, Blanche. You will make all the boys in the village blush.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Hismena says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have always thought the name ‘Margat’ is very ugly,” Margat says. Hismena looks up from under her eyelashes and she watches Margat pull her thread taut. Her nose is wrinkled. “Very sharp in the mouth. Oh, my name is Margat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena looks down again. “I know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They spend the rest of their time in blissful silence, until the dinner bell rings, but Hismena has already decided that Margat is unspeakably and irreparably shallow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t see her again for a few days. By that time the other girls have gotten to her; she sees Margat being dragged down the halls by the wrist, laughing foolishly. Her eyes slide over Hismena in those moments like water off a duck’s back, and Hismena likes her even less.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They have no need to interact until they both arrive at the well to wash the laundry at the same time. Hismena doesn’t know it is Margat for some time, having gotten used to being ignored by the others, but through the splashing of the water she hears, “oh, Hismena.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks up, completely startled. There is Margat, elbow-deep in the same water as Hismena. Margat laughs, a sound high in her throat. “What a surprise,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena does not say “what surprise?” She says, instead, “yes, Margat. Hello.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is content to return to her washing, but Margat sighs rather loudly and says, “it is such a beautiful day.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena regards their surroundings. The well is on the outside of the abbey, facing towards the mountains. Beyond the dusty clearing is a meadow of yellow flowers that reminds Hismena of running yolk, so vibrant is their color. The sun has come from behind clouds to light the valley, making the grass seem a brighter green, the trees sharper and more stately. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Hismena says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you get used to living in such a beautiful place?” Margat asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena is inclined not to even answer such an inane question, but something bright in Margat’s tone inspires her to say, “you really find it that beautiful?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat looks at her as if she’s questioned that the sky is blue. “Yes,” she answers, almost incredulous. “It is stunning. It makes my head spin, for how large it all is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena snorts. “The earth is big. The sky is big.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Creation is a wonder,” Margat says. “It fills me with awe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You sound like a child, stepping outside his home for the first time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“God intended the world to please us,” Margat says. “I try to approach it with that reverence. You do not?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena is caught off guard. She very pointedly does not remove her eyes from her washing, scared at what she might find. Judgement? Was she so obvious? She licks her lips, focusing on the rainbow ripples across the water, the distortion of her fingers under the surface.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I had never thought that way, no.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh. Well, perhaps I am the unusual one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she hears splashing, Hismena finally looks up again. There is Margat, veil half-hiding her arrow-straight nose, her pretty pink lips. Hismena had not thought shallow girls to love God, certainly not to love God more than she- was this a secret that had been hidden from her?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How could Margat be devout? How could she be varied, where Hismena is plain?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is unfair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena wants it. She wants what Margat had in her voice as she said that, wants to sound like the sun breaking over the valley and turning it bright and glorious. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>It’s not easy enough for Hismena to begin following Margat around everywhere she goes. They both have duties, but, more importantly, Margat is far more popular than Hismena. The other sisters take notice almost immediately.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>First, she sits next to Margat at dinner. For any other sister, Hismena assumes this would be commonplace, but Hismena has never once in her life sat anywhere but at the very end of the table. She has heard them whisper, before, that it is so she can catch crumbs that roll down to her. That is why they call her Mouse, sometimes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she sits next to Margat, a ripple of unease cascades down the rows of girls. It’s so noticeable that Hismena is hysterically tempted to laugh at them all. Their faces are comical and expressive, strange birds poking wimpled heads at an intruder in their nest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat says “hello,” indifferently, and bows her head to pray.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next day she tries to sit by her again, but is unable to. The other sisters seem to have conspired to protect Margat from her, and cast nasty looks as she takes a seat at the end again. She hears “mouse,” whispered along the row.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On her third day of this endeavor, Hismena follows Margat and another sister down a hallway. They are talking briskly, when, suddenly, the other sister says, “It is tiresome, to always have someone tagging along without saying anything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat seems confused, and begins to turn, but Hismena is already passing them both. Her cheeks are flaming hot. She cannot believe how easily she was caught, how easily her plan was thwarted. To be honest, she’s not entirely sure what her plan was to begin with. Did she think that by being near Margat she would somehow absorb her goodness?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is all too clear to everyone else that Margat and Hismena are two fundamentally different human beings. If Hismena thought that she would catch something of Margat, something true and real that could help her, she was wrong.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next day, she ignores Margat again. The next, she is unable to. They are washing clothes together again, joined by another sister. She is probably different from the one in the hallway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They begin the work in silence, but apparently that’s too much to ask for the other sister, who says, “You know, I always wondered if you had a tail, Mouse. You never bathe with the rest of us. Are you hiding something?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena remains steadfastly silent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, now, Mouse.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She washes. At this point, she doesn’t mind the words, but she is embarrassed that Margat is witnessing it. She is also sad, because she feels that the moment Margat calls her “Mouse” will change something. She knows that it does not matter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mouse?” Margat asks, in her clueless voice. “Is that what you call Hismena?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her voice is pleasant, and it makes the other sister laugh. “Because she sits at the end of the table,” she explains, giggling. Hismena dunks the clothes in the water so hard that they splash water across her front. “The crumbs all run down the table, on a slant, and she collects them. Like a little mouse.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat begins to laugh, too. Hismena is so embarrassed. She knows that her face must be bright red, now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe we should check your feet, then,” Margat says, her voice still gay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The other sister cackles. “Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because you spend so much time chattering, they must be three-toed, like a bluejay’s,” Margat says, with perfect civility.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The other sister’s laughter dies just as Hismena snorts. Now her face grows red.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That is not-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go on, let us see,” Margat says, pointing a dripping hand at the other sister’s feet. She is smiling brightly at the jest. “Hismena, would you not enjoy seeing?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena says nothing. She is now worried about her laughter. The other sister gets to her feet and throws down her clothes in the water. Margat watches her leave, and then looks again to Hismena.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was wondering why they were so cruel to you,” Margat says, still smiling. “Sorry, Hismena.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena blinks at her. “What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat peacefully returns to her washing, speaking evenly. “I thought they were being excessive. You have not done anything to upset them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena is ridiculously touched. She watches Margat bow her head over the water, notices the curve of her lips and the delicate flutter of her eyelashes. To Hismena, she seems so much more </span>
  <em>
    <span>feminine </span>
  </em>
  <span>than the other girls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was not a problem for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They are your friends,” Hismena says. “Maybe they will call you names, now, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Perhaps. Then I think they are not worth my time.” Margat’s eyes meet Hismena’s, and Hismena looks away quickly. Hismena doesn’t ask if Margat thinks </span>
  <em>
    <span>she’s</span>
  </em>
  <span> worth her time, and Margat doesn’t give any indication she notices Hismena’s tiny and victorious smile.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is so lost in the idea that Margat has chosen </span>
  <em>
    <span>her </span>
  </em>
  <span>over the others that she is unable to stop herself from saying, “They are right to be concerned. I have been following you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Immediately, her self-satisfaction vanishes. She is, once again, betrayed by that relentless need to make everyone around her despise her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh?” Margat says. “Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena wasn’t expecting her to forgive this vicious slight. “I…” she says, and then, “I do not believe in God. But I want to believe. And I thought since you believe so fervently… I could learn from you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She cannot possibly look at her. When was the last time she was so honest? Perhaps when she was a child. Then she had been compelled to tell her mother about every step out of line, unable to accept less punishment than her conscience felt she deserved. But, then again, she had not spoken in so many words in a long time, either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really?” Margat asks. She sounds almost pleased. When Hismena finds the courage to look at her, she’s smiling. “I am honored, Hismena. I would be honored.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Relief courses through her in a heavy wave. “Oh,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat lifts the last of her washing from the pool and laughs, high and pretty. “Shall I be your teacher?” she asks, though the words don’t seem to be directed at Hismena. “How strange. Yes, I will.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She lifts her basket of wet clothing and rises. Hismena doesn’t ask her anything more, afraid her insistence will break this spell. “Goodbye,” Margat says, and goes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena watches her.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Margat sits across from her at dinner, both of them at the end of the table. Hismena is too distracted to notice the other sisters and their reactions, but she imagines they cannot be good. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After that, Margat does not leave Hismena’s side, save from their separate duties and chores in the morning and evening. It is a seemingly natural shift. Hismena quickly cannot imagine not seeking her out as they leave church, sitting across from her at meals, saying goodnight to her as they leave for their separate rooms. She is shocked at how incredible it feels.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s not alone, but she likes it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat is a fine conversationalist. She’s funny, in an odd way. She has no issues making fun of someone, or of Mother Dimia, but often her face becomes queer and almost blank, or she’ll suddenly laugh and then leave. Hismena doesn’t know where she goes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she is by her side, though, Hismena feels like she has a friend. A </span>
  <em>
    <span>friend</span>
  </em>
  <span>! </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat likes her embroidered trees. “They are so twisted,” she says. “But they are beautiful.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Like me, then,” Hismena jokes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are not the twisted one,” Margat says, and Hismena laughs. Later, though, she thinks Margat means it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The impossibility of laughing overtakes this suspicion. The miracle of being around someone who does not make Hismena’s stomach hurt is nearly unthinkable. Yet here she is, fallen in Hismena’s lap like the prize apple from a tree full of rotting and death.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The world is not nearly as full of bad things as you think,” Margat scolds. They are embroidering together, again. “Sometimes I think you are blind.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena shrugs, pulling a thread taut. “I think we live in different worlds, Margat. Yours is full of honey.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you find beautiful?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena blushes. “The sunset,” she says, at random. She has never thought about the sunset before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well then, let us watch the sun set,” Hismena says. “Tonight. We can sneak to the main tower and you can be reminded that all is not terrible.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I had not thought my godly training would put me in such a precarious situation.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I had not thought that pupils could question their tutors,” Margat sniffs, and Hismena laughs and messes up her stitching.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After dinner, Margat goes with Hismena to her room, where they wait for the other sisters to get to bed. It is unbelievably thrilling to have Margat in her room, sitting on her bed. Hismena doesn’t know why she is so flustered by the state of her things. Her room is plain and boring.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You should have flowers, or some embroidery,” Margat says, running her hands over Hismena’s sheets. Hismena is weirdly nervous, like Margat’s fingers will discover some contraband that Hismena doesn’t even have. A secret, perhaps.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not need it to be pretty,” Hismena says, making sure she sounds as if she couldn’t care less.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, Hismena. Must you surround yourself in mediocrity? You are so interesting.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena has nothing to say to that. She turns to the window and covers her cheeks with her hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they’re certain it is safe, they sneak out of the room and up the stairs. The chapel connects to the passageway, and so Hismena is concerned a priest will catch them, but they make it up soundly. Margat giggles half the way, and Hismena tells her to shut her mouth so many times she almost puts her hand over her lips to silence her. But she cannot do that. She would burst.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The tower is empty, save for a few cabinets, and they crowd the only window. The sun dips below the mountains just as they arrive, and the sky becomes a bruised pink-purple. Margat gasps like they’re witnessing the angel Gabriel touching down for the second time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is so wonderful,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Hismena confirms, watching the light play on Margat’s cheeks. They’ve both abandoned their wimples downstairs, making the journey only in their nightgowns, and Margat’s hair is dark brown. It reminds Hismena of the trees from her dreams, dark and mysterious, but comforting. It looks soft. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Margat has seen enough, she pulls Hismena to sit on the ground with her. “Could you not feel the happiness rising from within you?” she asks. “Like He is drawing it out of you? Like a breath?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I suppose,” Hismena says. Margat bats at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are not cooperating. I thought you wanted to believe?”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>So did I</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she does not say. “I am struggling. Perhaps He simply does not exist in the world I live in.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will not give up,” Margat says, standing determinedly. “There will be a brief and beautiful moment where you will understand it all. Do not worry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>During this speech, she paces across the room and knocks her shoulder into the cabinet. She whirls and, lost in the throes of her passion for Hismena’s salvation, throws it open.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There are bottles of holy wine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena expects Margat to close the cabinet, but she turns to Hismena and smiles wickedly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They drink through two bottles, both of which Margat hides discreetly behind the others. Hismena has never been drunk before, but it is a wild and wheeling experience. Margat laughs at everything she says. Her body feels so light she’s afraid she might lift off, and a few minutes ago she took hold of Margat’s hand to make sure she would not, and Margat never let go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is with unexpected joy that Hismena finds herself totally uninhibited. Margat asks her what she thinks of Mother Dimia, and she says that she’s a miserable wench, and they laugh so hard that Hismena’s stomach hurts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hismena,” Margat says, and Hismena grins at her. “Have you ever kissed someone?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena makes a face. “Never.” Then she laughed. “Have you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes. What an unpleasant man.” This makes Margat laugh so hard that Hismena has half-forgotten the question by the time Margat asks, “can I kiss you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena blinks, addled. “Me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She laughs. “Me? Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat’s eyes burn into Hismena’s. She looks at Hismena’s face all over, and Hismena blushes and her fingers tighten around Margat’s. Margat’s other hand combs through Hismena’s hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I feel as though I’ve always known you,” she says, or whispers. Her face is so close to Hismena’s that Hismena doesn’t need to strain her ears to understand her, and her breath is warm on her cheeks. “I do not know. I have liked you very much.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I like you very much, too,” Hismena says. She looks at Margat’s lips. They’re very pink.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Since the moment I saw you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was mean to you, then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think you are mean to everyone,” Margat says, flippantly, and Hismena laughs, but she’s so nervous that her breath squeaks. “I think we will like it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to,” Hismena says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Okay,” Margat says back. She’s obviously nervous, in a way that Hismena has not seen since they first met. Tentative, Margat pets Hismena’s hair. She squeezes her fingers. She kisses her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is only a moment, a flash of heat before Margat pulls back. She looks slightly abashed, as if she’s not sure how it was. Hismena leans forward before Margat is away from her and kisses her back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is not some culmination of the feelings that have already existed in Hismena, and does not bring them to further fruition. It just feels like a promise, a promise exchanged carefully and slowly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They don’t kiss for very long. There are more important things to talk about. Margat asks Hismena if she believes in love.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did your mother love your father?” Margat clarifies. They are laying on their backs, still holding hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I also do not know,” Hismena says. “I think my mother was a difficult person to love.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It never felt like she was really there,” Hismena admits. She can still feel her mother’s hands, cool on her cheeks. </span>
  <em>
    <span>What a pretty girl you are, Blanche.</span>
  </em>
  <span> “She was elusive. Perhaps she was a fairy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A fairy would be easy to love, though, would it not?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena closed her eyes. “Not if you get tired of waiting for her to come home.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My mother and father hated each other.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat stretches one hand over her head. “I always dreamed to find someone to love.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena does not want to know if Margat loves her. It is, for some reason, difficult to accept that Margat would ever find her desirable enough. Whatever they have must be only a piece of her devotion.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I dream of running away into the forest,” Hismena says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That would be nice,” Margat says, almost wistfully. “Going to the mountains.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to be close enough to take handfuls of the sun,” Hismena says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat props herself up on her elbows. “Really?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena, confused, follows her up. “Really.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let us try.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is no question in her tone, so Hismena nods. Then they are flying down the stairs, both still giddy with wine. Down, and past their rooms. Through the hallways, past the chapel doors. Their feet are bare. The air outside is cool. The valley and the mountains are peculiar in the moonlight, blue and not quite honest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena runs with all the force she can find in herself. She was never athletic as a child, but she has never wanted anything like she wants this. Her body hurtles forward, legs only just managing to keep her from careening off course.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They begin with their hands linked, but by the time they have reached the edge of the forest Hismena has let go. She pumps both arms and flies over the roots of trees, pushing branches away from her face as they come. Every fiber of her being urges her forward, sings with the movements of her body. She doesn’t feel stings or cuts from rocks in the underbrush on her bare feet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She has started to slip away, she thinks. Her mind drains. All she can imagine is reaching the mountains, that moment when-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Hismena!</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She slows. When did- who is here?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Hismena, where are you</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is Margat. Her brain returns to her, and she breathes in this knowledge. Margat, of course. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>I am scared</span>
  </em>
  <span>!” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Irrational anger springs up. What does Margat have to fear? They have only just left the abbey, and if she walks back then she will easily find it. Hismena has never been this close before. Even through the darkness, she can see the shimmering moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Hismena!</span>
  </em>
  <span>”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena turns around and runs back. “Margat!” she calls. “What is wrong?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat stands amongst the trees, vivid in her white nightgown. She is an apparition of some sort, but apparitions do not cry like this. Her hands cover her face. She sobs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Margat!” Hismena says, and goes to her, pulling her hands from her face. “What is wrong?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am afraid,” Margat says, voice choked with emotion. “Please. Let us go back.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Hello, Mouse.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena does not turn, but she knows who it is. The girl Margat called Bluejay. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She has been berating Hismena more than usual, but has usually stopped at Margat’s command. Margat, however, is not here. She is waiting for Hismena in her room, while Hismena returns from the bath.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Hismena says, without looking. She begins to walk away, towards her room, and hopes that Bluejay cannot tell her panic.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to see your tail, Mouse,” Bluejay says. Her voice is gleeful, joking, but there’s some menace there as well. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not have a tail,” Hismena says, walking faster, and Bluejay laughs from behind her. Hismena feels much more vulnerable than usually. Though she is clothed, her hair is wet on her neck and her skin feels scrubbed and a layer too thin.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on, Mouse.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena walks faster, and she feels Bluejay grab her wrist. Crying out, Hismena is slammed into the wall, hard enough to hurt. Her body is wild with panic. She kicks frantically, and Bluejay lets her go, laughing. All she had done was yank Hismena the right way, but Hismena was easily pushed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where is Margat? I would have thought she would come out behind you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena’s cheeks heat. “That- that is perverted!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bluejay cackles, and Hismena starts to walk away again. Bluejay calls, “what is perverted is that you killed your mother.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena stops dead. Frozen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You killed her and your father sent you here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That- that is not true,” Hismena says, weak against Bluejay’s certainty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How would Margat like to know that?” Bluejay asks. “Your friend, does she know that you are a murderer?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena stammers, her breath coming in short bursts. How could Bluejay find out something like that? Who told her that?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You always act better than everyone here,” Bluejay says, advancing with a menace that is too real now. “But you are the worst of any of us.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She has Hismena backed into a wall, and Hismena knows she should run, but she says, “at least real bluejays are pretty. You are just a pest.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Then she spits in Bluejay’s face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bluejay gapes at her, and this gives Hismena a moment to break free. She runs towards her room, her chest heaving and her heart going so fast it hurts. Bluejay is close behind, though, and Hismena is almost there, so close, when Bluejay knocks her to the ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whore,” she hisses at Hismena. “Murderous whore! Margat should spit on you. You are wicked.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Devil,” Hismena croaks, and Bluejay makes a move, perhaps to kick her, which Hismena flinches away from, and then she hears Bluejay squawk. There, impossibly, is Margat. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She slaps Bluejay. “Do not touch her!” she snarls, in the most un-Margat way. “I will kill you! Stay away from her!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Bluejay, who probably would not have cowed from Hismena’s violence, seems startled and scared of Margat’s. She squeaks something, maybe an apology to Hismena or maybe just another threat, and scampers down the hall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat looks down at Hismena, eyes still blazing. “Are you alright?” she asks. Her voice is still razer-edged.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Hismena says, completely in awe. “I am- yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She gets to her feet, and sees Margat turn to the wall, briefly. Her jaw works. Then she says, “I believe you. That she was lying.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena blinks. She did not know Margat had heard so much. She ducks her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Mother Dimia comes for her, once, when they are working on the book. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>All the sisters have, at some point, illustrated bibles. Hismena thinks it is a boring endeavor, but Margat is sweetly adamant that they will have an incredibly good time doing a book together, and it is very hard for Hismena to say no to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Months have passed. Hismena does not care to record the time, simply glad to have it. Everything she once considered boring, useless, dull, terrible, is replaced with her. She revels in the pleasures of the abbey. She loves the walls that have brought them together. She even takes to talking to the other sisters pleasantly, and they respond like she is normal. Bluejay is still cruel, but she lingers as unreal as a shadow in a world that is made for Hismena and Margat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They have kissed a few times since their first. Sometimes, Margat will spend the night in Hismena’s room, wrapped in her arms. Hismena had initially thought any moment that she touched Margat would lead to her bursting like an overripe grape, but she has found that she instead becomes too used to it, and suffers every moment they are apart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they are working on the book, Margat is telling her about a boy from her old village who had a penchant for kicking dogs. She is telling Hismena that she would not allow her father and brothers to take the dogs out on a hunt in fear that the boy would find them- and Hismena is laughing- and Mother Dimia comes in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sister Margat,” she says. “You have visitors.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena looks at her curiously, but Margat seems confused. “Oh,” she says. “Sister Hismena, I shall return.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She smiles at Hismena, and leaves with her. Hismena works steadfastly on the book for another hour before Margat returns. Even being left alone does not inspire in her the same dark thoughts it once did, and she thinks of bright things. Dinner, and dreaming, and every day after this one. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Margat returns, however, she is strange. Her face is so pale. Her eyes are too wide.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Margat, what is wrong?” Hismena asks, going to her, but Margat shrinks away from her hands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My parents have found me a suitable husband,” she says, carefully. Her voice shakes. “He will collect me in a week.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They stare at each other.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am so sorry,” Margat says, and goes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena stands in the middle of the room, staring at the work she has done with Margat. She grows suddenly hot. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Had she known? Had she always known? It seems impossible that, had her parents sent her to the nunnery to keep her safe while they shopped for her husband, Margat had remained unaware.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Perhaps-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But it could not be a game. Margat did not want this new husband. She wanted Hismena, and Hismena wanted her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She goes to Mother Dimia.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You cannot allow them to take her,” she says, fiercely. “Do you have no loyalty?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mother Dimia regards her coolly. “This is an abbey, Sister Hismena. I am not your mother. Were you somehow unaware of this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena flushes. “If she does not want a husband, then she should not have to take one.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Once again-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How can she stay?” Hismena asks, desperate for an answer. She wants a solution, a solution to give to her like a present. “Do you want money?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She cannot.” Mother Dimia’s lips twist. “She can run, perhaps, away from here. I would not stop her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena thinks of Margat crying in the forest and shakes her head. Mother Dimia sighs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not everyone is in your position,” Mother Dimia says. “But perhaps that is a good thing. At least Margat’s family wants her back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena flinches like she’s been hit. Mother Dimia looks back down at her papers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She runs to Margat’s room, but she is not there. She briefly considers waiting for her, but discards the idea and goes to her own room. There, Margat lays. She is on the bed, curled up like a child.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Margat,” Hismena says. “You do not have to- we can run. It will be difficult, but we will have each other. I will-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Margat says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her voice is tight as a shut door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena goes to her on the bed. “Margat,” she says. “Please. What do I do?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You will have to lose me,” Margat says. Her voice is bitter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not want to!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat is silent and still. Hismena touches her shoulder. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Margat, you do not want to lose me, so why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her voice is more tight than she wanted it to be, but she cannot hide her sorrow. She wants to understand, wants to be told the truth. Margat shudders, and then goes till, suppressing her sobs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I deserve it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena goes still. “What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not want a husband. I do not want to bear children. To me it is like torture, like the worst torture. But still, it is more than I deserve.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are you-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I had a husband, before,” Margat continues. Her voice is flat and strange. “He was so strong, and his voice was so loud. I hated him. He did not treat me as a good husband should, but he did not fear God.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena doesn’t dare speak. She feels manipulative, getting the answers from Margat while she is under this strange spell, but she cannot break it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So I took the herbs my mother said were bad for me- and when I made his meal-” Margat crushed her face against the pillow. “I should be killed. They should kill me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want God to strike me down.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, Margat,” Hismena says. She does not touch her. “You did not deserve- God forgives those who are righteous.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am not righteous! I have murdered!” Margat finally looks at her. Hismena wishes she would not. Her eyes are unfamiliar. Her pain made anything Hismena has ever experienced look pale and small. She does not know what to do with Margat’s pain, even though she loves her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Leave me alone,” Margat says, turning her face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is my room.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat sobs. Her cries are like those in the forest, mewling and sad. Hismena wants to make her happy, but there is nothing she can do to make the words that Margat has said go away. Sin lingers here, around them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I killed my mother,” she says, instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat’s sobs grow quieter. They do not subside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Or I might as well have. I was followed home. It was… a bad man. He was angry. I thought my mother would protect me.” Hismena has not thought about this in so long. She remembers his shadow stretching over her mother’s prone body, remembers the smell. “I didn’t think she </span>
  <em>
    <span>could </span>
  </em>
  <span>die.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Because she was a fairy. Because she was all that was good in the world, all the light and the color. She was magic, and Hismena took that magic from the world.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat turns to her. “You did not wield the knife.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If I had killed that man, would God have forgiven me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They stare at each other. “I am so sorry,” Margat whispers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I never think about it,” Hismena says. “That is how I stay sane. I let it go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You never sought happiness,” Margat says, and it is brutal how true her words are. Hismena always seeks punishment. Without even thinking. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I sought you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not deserve you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Neither do I.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat sighs. But she does not cry and she does not look away. “I wanted to be Jesus’s bride,” she says, wistfully. “I love it here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I love you</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Hismena thinks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat does not look at her. She closes her eyes. “How? I told you that I am twisted, Hismena.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not make trees that are not twisted.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to repent.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“God will forgive you.” Hismena stares at her dark hair, the fists of her hands. “You brought me to salvation. Is that not repenting?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat laughs, shortly. “You are not a believer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well,” and her voice is acidic, “what do you find God in, Hismena? Sunsets?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Waking up,” Hismena says. “Going to bed. The walls. The abbey. Walking. Thinking. Breathing. You. Everything that takes me to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat opens her eyes. She looks at Hismena. She gestures her to come closer, and Hismena does. She lays down so they are facing each other, breathing the same air, but not touching.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There is no world that I will stay with you,” Margat says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena nods, and smiles. Her cheeks are wet, but she is not sure when she started crying, or if she ever stopped. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> “I love you,” Margat says, quietly. She closes her eyes. They sleep.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>In her dreams, Margat stands at the tower window. Hismena waves to her from the edge of the forest. Mother Dimia is walking across the lawn, authoritative as always.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hismena!” she calls.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena moves to go to her, but sees that Margat is already dashing from the window. Too fast to be possible, Margat runs from the doorway. Her hair streams out behind her, so long it would tangle her heels if she ever slowed down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sister Hismena,” Mother Dimia says, and catches Margat under one arm. “Wear your veil, please.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat grins at Hismena over Mother Dimia’s shoulder. Noticing this, Mother Dimia turns.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She appears before Hismena too quickly. “Sister Margat,” Mother Dimia says, touching Hismena’s shoulder. “I hope you know that you can always run. You can always run away.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Over Mother Dimia’s shoulder, Hismena sees that Margat is back in the tower, back to waving. Her face is open and sunny. She looks like her old self, the first version of her that Hismena ever saw. She looks happy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you listening, Blanche?” Mother Dimia says, and Hismena looks back at her. She looks like her mother.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Let her take my place,” Hismena says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mother Dimia looks at her, pensive. They are in her office once again, and the sky outside in grey. It has been two days since Margat told her she was leaving. Now, Margat is laying in Hismena’s bed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You said that she did not have my privilege. But she wants it. So let her replace me, in every registry, and I will run away for her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mother Dimia sighs, laying her hands out on the table. “Hismena-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She will wear a veil when her husband comes- but he will not know her anyway. Say that she is Hismena, and that Margat has run away.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You take on responsibility, then, for a runaway bride,” Mother Dimia says, looking and sounding annoyed. “He may chase after you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He does not know what I look like.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“A woman travelling on her own is suspicious.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will go so far that he cannot possibly find me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The disapproval in Mother Dimia’s face melts, and gives way to pity. “You can never come back. There will be no safe place for you, Hismena. Perhaps there never will.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena tries to make her face look fearless. “I have to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, you do not.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I </span>
  <em>
    <span>have </span>
  </em>
  <span>to,” Hismena insists.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mother Dimia looks at her, really looks at her. Hismena hopes she can see it all. She hopes she can see how far she would go for this girl, the leagues she would cross for this girl. She hopes Mother Dimia finds her love suitable.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will veil them all,” Mother Dimia says, sighing. “And warn them. Run now, Hismena. Get as much of a head start as you can.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena’s relief is dizzying. “Thank you,” she breathes. “You- thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hmm.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena flies down the halls to the room they now share. Margat has not moved, even now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Margat,” Hismena says. “I have saved you.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She was not surprised. Margat said that she has always known that Hismena would run.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That night in the forest,” Margat murmured, into Hismena’s hair. “I knew that if I let you, you would run away and be gone from me. I could not bear it. Not until you knew how much you meant to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now I know?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Now </span>
  <em>
    <span>I </span>
  </em>
  <span>know that you will never know. You will never understand how much I care for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat asked her to stay a day more. Hismena couldn’t say no- she never could. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That last day, they finished the book. They couldn’t think of anything that would connect them more but to create something together. “They will know we existed,” Margat insisted. “When they touch the pages, they will touch our lives.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She helped Hismena pack, braided her hair tightly and taught her a lullaby she knew. Anything to connect them. Anything to make them feel closer, when they are apart.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That night, Margat walked Hismena to the edge of the forest. She was barefooted, wearing her nightdress, but Hismena wore the clothes that Margat came to the abbey in, a finer dress than she ever would have been able to afford with her family. She carried with her food and a bottle of wine and all the money Margat had.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will miss you,” Hismena said.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do not say that,” Margat told her. “I am always with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They kissed, once. The last time. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Margat was crying, but she smiled at Hismena, cupping her face with both hands. “I always thought you were holy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You will be a very good nun,” Hismena said, and Margat laughed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know what you meant. I see you in everything. I love everything because of you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hismena leaned forward so their foreheads touched. “Thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She did not run through the forest, but walked. She saw everything, felt everything, and it all felt clean. Nothing like her dream, but beautiful all the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It did not take her the whole day to reach the point halfway up the mountain where she stands. She can see paths, real and in her head, that branch out over the valley, the places she has been and where she has not. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She lied, telling Margat that she made her believe in God. Margat made Hismena believe in herself. She made her love herself, made her see what she saw in her. She made her forgive. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can see the abbey. She imagines Margat, waving at her from the tower, and she raises her hand to wave back. </span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>You did it!!!!! Hooray!!!<br/>So I'm not going to lie I was about one centimeter from giving up since this chapter was SUCH A BITCH, but I was reading back all the comments from my other Portrait fic and they were so nice that they fueled me to write pretty much this whole thing in a matter of hours. WHEW. My fingers hurt.<br/>Tbh I struggled with this one because i didn't like the concept as much as the previous one and I was worried it was too formulaic, but then I realized that not everything i write has to be so serious and, like, good? So i just went asndahsfahsdfhsdhf on the keyboard and this came out.<br/>The next one (hopefully I'll get to writing that before the month is out, lol, my energy's all over the place with this one) is a bit of a zinger (more of a sexual and romantic coming of age) and it is from Marianne's perspective. If you didn't like this chapter as much, maybe stick around for the next one?<br/>Thanks for reading &lt;3 &lt;3 &lt;3 and stay safe!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. England, 1513 CE, or, Mary and Helen Learn to Sew</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>This mentions prostitution, as well as the idea of prostitution of a minor. There is no onscreen sex.</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>She’s seen her around town before. In the market, when Mary goes to it, but always on the fringes. Maybe she isn’t allowed in. Maybe she is a crook. A criminal. She looks it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her eyes are dangerous. They have a cruel element, a sharp element, but it fascinates Mary when it should scare her. She wonders if they are truly a whore’s eyes, like her mother says. Her mother, even, notices her. That is what she was like, how she can draw attention so effortlessly. Mary sometimes wonders if the girl notices her back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Only once have their eyes met. Mary had always before thought them to be a sort of grey-blue, but when she actually saw them, they were sort of green, instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When the girl saw Mary, she smiled. Or, rather, she smirked. It was the kind of smile Mary didn’t think her mother would let in the house, the kind that she would probably sweep out the door like a clod of dirt from a shoe heel. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary replays that moment so often. In waking, she puzzles over it. Whatever the girl had seen must have been funny- perhaps Mary’s flushed cheeks, her flyaway hair coming loose from its braid. It drives Mary mad, thinking the girl thinks she is humorous to look at. This gives way to anger, a dull anger that comes to her when she thinks about that girl. Why? Why, why, why?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In dreams, though, that smile comes to her not as a question but as an answer.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>“Your sister is getting married,” Mary’s mother says. She is sitting before a mirror and having Mary brush her hair as she says it. Mary hopes she doesn’t notice the way she accidentally dug the brush in, surprised at this statement.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really, Mother?” Mary says, evenly, brushing as if she is not alert to this topic. “To whom? Charles?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mother lets out a single squawk of a laugh. “Not the farm boy, Mary. A nobleman. He will arrive in a few weeks time. Anne is very excited.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary’s heart sinks. She knows Anne, knows how she looks at Charles, how her face glows when she sees him. To her, their love had been a fairytale kind. She had thought- but perhaps not. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is good news.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know, Mary,” her mother says. Her eyes are fixed on her own face in the mirror. “In fact, you are nearing an appropriate age to start considering marriage, are you not?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am fifteen, Mother.” Not to mention that men don’t even like Mary. They never have. Her cheeks and her hair and her still-small breasts. She despises the odd angles of her clumsy body, the body of a child, with squash-round stomach and sharp elbows. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For a noblewoman, fifteen is old.” Her mother tilts her head so Mary can sweep her hair over her shoulders and begin to pin it. Her mother was married at thirteen, Mary knows, a point of pride for her. Anne is just seventeen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am not sure what man will want me,” Mary says, quietly. She sees her mother’s eyes leave her own face and catch on Mary’s. A look of pity sweeps through her mask of vanity.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Plenty will. By the time they call upon you, you will be quite skilled. You are good at sewing.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary thinks about her previous attempts at the craft, with her mother’s less than gentle instruction. She would not call it good. Or even decent. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Perhaps you will need a tutor. My aunt lives in town. Perhaps you should train a while with her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary tries not to show her confusion. She has lived all her life in her family’s manor, and never once met an aunt in town. Still, though, the idea sparks some excitement in her. “Would that be acceptable?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Since Anne’s suitor is coming in for a time, it might be a good idea. Best not to test his wandering eye.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary’s heart leaps, suddenly. Town! Town is an adventure. “That would be very nice, Mother. Thank you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mother says nothing more. She says nothing more, in fact, until her hair has been set and she leaves her seat with a word of thanks. Mary sits on her mother’s bed and smiles until her face hurts.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Preparations for her move are done so fast she feels as if she is living in some strange dream reality. Her sister holds her in limp arms, eyes hollow. Her father stands distant as a statue, and her mother instructs the horseman who will accompany her riding in on where to find her Aunt Dorothy. She has few belongings, as her mother is incredibly worried about her things being stolen, but her heart is so full it almost feels heavy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The ride to town is the same as always. Peaceful. Green. Mary looks at everything as if she’s never before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The manor is suitably bustling with servants, but town is far, far different. Mary feels lost riding into it, feels lost up until she is stepping into the building her aunt lives. Even then, her nerves pluck erratically at her insides like a harp player at his first lesson. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mary?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary whips around, embarrassed to have not been paying attention. From a far door emerges an old woman in a knitted shawl. Her hair is brittle-looking and grey, and her hands shake as she puts them forward. Mary realizes, taking in this woman’s pale blue eyes, that she is blind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A sudden note of confusion courses down her spine. Is this Aunt Dorothy? Her sewing teacher is blind?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Aunt Dorothy?” Mary says, cautiously dipping a curtsy. A smile spreads across the woman’s face, flattening wrinkles. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Welcome. Please come in. Come closer. Do you have things? I would have Martha take your things, but she has gone away somewhere. Martha is my shopkeeper. She is flighty, though. Perhaps you will prove better.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This monologue is delivered in the slow, trembling way Mary has heard old people speak before. She patiently waits for Dorothy to finish.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will take my things. Where shall I take them?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This way, to my apartments.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary is shown Dorothy’s living space, the space she uses to tailor clothes, and the extra room she is to stay in. It is much smaller than what she is used to, but overlooks the street. She presses her face against the glass and watches the people go by in a flood. She has been to town- but not this part, ever.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything smells different here. Dirtier, yes, but that kind of scent pervaded the side of the manor that overlooked the stables as well. There’s something like flowers, and dust. Sweet things, a kitchen smell. The manor was so large that it couldn’t contain everything into one room, but here, all the parts of the house are kept close. Mary feels like she could find her way in the dark here. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is struck with a sudden enthusiasm to explore not just this house but this town. Her body is alive with certainty that she was born to live here, to grow here. She has had so few opportunities to explore places filled with people, and she is certain that they must be beautiful. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary ties her hair back and goes downstairs to the front of the shop. Dorothy does not emerge when she calls that she will be back, which she thinks is fine. Everything about being alone is fine, without her mother’s eyes burning down her back. She steps outside.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Everything is tinted golden by her optimism, her conviction. The sky looks rosy, the buildings clean and neat, the street straight and smooth. She walks, confident, and breathes in. It smells slightly bad, but she’s willing to overlook it for the sake of newness. One more thing she can get used to!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is like a freed woman, or, no, a bird let out of her cage! Her excitement is so wild and huge she closes her eyes to take it in.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A body collides with her. Without the ability to brace, as she doesn’t see it coming,  she is actually thrown. The ground, alarming soft, catches her coldly and wetly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You!” Mary squeaks, even before she has seen the person. This is her instinctual reaction- along with fury, she needs satisfaction. Her eyes run over the dirty hem of the skirt, the faded fabric, and then that sharp jaw and blonde hair. Realization dawns on Mary’s face as contempt fills this girl’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She says nothing, just looks at her. Her eyes burn, the way they did that time they’d met before, but they’re fiercer now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary feels like her head is exploding, and she doesn’t know why. It must be panic- but there’s fear, and eagerness and excitement. Her mother said that whores make boys excited. Those were her words, exactly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Whore…” Mary says, so faintly, not even thinking.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The contempt on the girl’s face gives way to fury, a blaze of it. “Hag!” she spits, and kicks soft mud into Mary’s face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary is shocked further. For a moment she sits there in the dirt, smelling that the mud is far worse than she originally thought, and then abandons dignity and scoops it off her face. “Wait!” she chokes, trying to get to her feet. Her hands slip, and she briefly falls again, but then she gets to her knees. “Wait!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stumbles after the girl, who has all but retreated. Mary is overjoyed that there are barely any people out, and those that are make ample room for a mud-soaked girl shouting after someone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come back!” Mary says. “Please!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl is fast. Faster than Mary, certain, she dodges down a street that Mary has never been to. Her mother’s warnings flash briefly in her head, but she ignores them and dashes after her. She cannot lose her. There are too many feelings coming too fast in her chest- she wants to grab her and ask her what she thinks of Mary. Maybe, actually, she wants to just hold her in place until she smiles at her. Yes, that’s it. She wants to see what it looks like if she smiles at her like she means it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In a dream-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come back!” Mary says again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She turns down the street. It is less crowded than the rest of the town, but she sees men leaning against a wall. Caution makes her slow, carefully not to appear unseemly, although they are hardly the type her mother would want her to curtsy and preen for at the house. They look old, and their faces are red.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Carefully, Mary walks down, looking for the place the girl might have gone to. A building walls off the street at the end, so she must have ducked into one of the doors, but they are all closed. She wants to ask the men. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Did you see her</span>
  </em>
  <span>? The words have a taste on her tongue already.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she doesn’t. She can’t- she’s afraid. She turns back down the street and flees.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Burning shame overtakes her later, as she strips the muddy clothes. The passion that flared in her at the thought of chasing that girl, a stranger, was humiliating. If she ever saw her again, she would not even look at her twice.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She avoids going out for a few days, but then accompanies her aunt to the market and about town. She stoutly holds the old woman’s arm as she picks out fruit, all the while keeping herself alert in case she is accosted by the girl again. The idea that she will seek revenge for what happened implants itself firmly in Mary’s brain, until she is convinced the chase was a battle between the forces of good and evil, during which Mary tried to catch a mud-kicking criminal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dorothy is good enough company as they move through town. She toddles slowly, but she knows enough people to make walks interesting. Mary is introduced to dozens of people, none of whom stick firmly in her mind. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Once she begins work, she is doubly distracted. She discovers that she has little to no skill with sewing. Her stitches are crooked, and uncertain. When she presents them to Dorothy to run her gnarled hands over, Mary catches distinct disappointment in her face. She is made to man the front of the shop instead.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The next time Mary runs into her again, she is making a delivery to the baker’s wife. Dorothy, who has a slight chill, has instructed her on all the places she needs to go. The baker’s wife is her last stop.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Coming away from the shop, Mary is distracted and annoyed. She is thinking of the dinner she will be expected to help make that night, and the sewing she might need to help with as well. The words that float to her are almost from another world, to be ignored. Then she realizes that someone is speaking to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Have you mended that skirt yourself?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stops short, and looks around. To her utter surprise, it is the girl.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She wears grey. Her blonde hair is tied back and away from her face. Every feature is striking: eyes, lips, nose, cheeks. It is overwhelming.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Mary says, so confused that she cannot consider what in the world is happening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl tilts her head and regards her full body, from the hem of her dress and up to her face again. Mary feels something inside her chest tighten.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is crooked. Are you not a seamstress’s apprentice?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary flushes, so dramatically and immediately that the girl laughs. She </span>
  <em>
    <span>laughs </span>
  </em>
  <span>at her. Mary can only watch, but horror is crawling up from her stomach. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I could do better.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good…” Mary clears her throat. “Good day!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She begins to walk briskly back towards her aunt’s shop. To her further embarrassment, she hears the girl beginning to walk after her. What in the world was happening?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I really could do better. I sewed this dress I am wearing. You seem as if you could not sew a bonnet, even. The stitches are so large! And they fall against each other. Your stitches are drunk.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary isn’t sure what to do. The girl catches up to her, and walks alongside her. Mary can see her profile from the corner of her eye. This is the one that inspired in her such turmoil? This dull and talkative peasant?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Surely this was a mistake. Was this an effort on your part to make?” The girl reaches over and plucks at Mary’s skirt, where she has stitched a hole. She flinches away spectacularly, almost stumbling in her haste to separate herself from her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You go too far!” Mary snaps, stopping. “Remove your hands from me!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl grins- no, bares her teeth. “Why should I?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You do not know me! Why do you torment me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl’s face suddenly grows grave. For a moment, Mary is stunned. It was if she had removed a mask, suddenly and entirely. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have insulted me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was not meant to be an insult,” Mary assures her, sharply. It is all she can do to remain sharp, and cool. “I was merely- my mind was elsewhere. I made a grave error.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And if it was not an error?” the girl asks, taking a step towards her. “If I am a whore?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary opens her mouth. Her face grows warm. She does not know what to say. The girl steps back and breaks eye contact, examining her fingernails.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know you are not from town. You are from an estate, and I know what kind of person you are.” The girl bites one of her fingernails, looking again to Mary. “I merely wanted to assure you that I am not accepting of your behavior. I revile people like you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not think kindly of you!” Mary snaps back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl narrows her eyes. “That is all right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then, she turns and leaves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary thinks this is the last time she will ever have to see her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Another two weeks pass. Dorothy is back on her feet, but lets Mary do all of her deliveries. Mary begins to make friends with the wives of the town. The baker’s wife is her favorite, but one woman, who is married to a man who sells fruit, is another of her special friends. They chat when the marketplace is set up, and Mary buys apples too often and grows sick of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is there, at the fruit stall, that their paths cross. She is leaning against the side of the stall, thinking about nothing in particular, when she catches sight of blonde hair moving swiftly through the crowd.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>From a sea of faces, the familiar one emerges. Mary is staring, so it is no surprise that the girl notices her too. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her eyes widen, and then she smirks. She makes her way towards the stand. Mary’s eyes keep being drawn to the curve of her neck, the way she moves like a cat towards prey. She doesn’t understand what she is doing until she has arrived before the fruit stand, staring at the apples, and then at Mary. She takes one, considers it, and then her hand lowers and she hides the fruit in the folds of her skirt.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She has stolen from the stand for the sole reason of Mary’s association.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary opens her mouth, but she hears the fruit vendor shout, suddenly, “hey!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He grabs the girl’s arm over the fruits and shakes her violently. Mary has never seen this aggression towards a woman before, and it frightens her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thieving whore! I told you to stay far from my stand.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary takes in the girl’s wide, frightened eyes, and before she can think what she is saying she says, “she intended to pay for it!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The fruit vendor glances at her. He is a large man, with a pale and flabby face that seems to show only joviality and anger, and his confusion registers as somewhere between those two. Mary leaps to the girl’s side and takes the apple from her hand. “She was coming to speak with me and forgot to pay before going. We are quite good friends and she was very excited to see me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The fruit vendor exhales. “Mary-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We met in church,” Mary adds, appealing to the religious streak that runs through many of the shopkeepers in town. “She is trying to become honest.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks at the girl and smiles. The girl smiles, then, too, a smile so sweet and innocent that even Mary is momentarily fooled. The fruit vendor drops her arm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is the truth,” Mary swears. “Here. This is her fare.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hands him coins, a little more generous than the price of one apple. The fruit vendor’s face slides further from anger. “Mary,” he says. “Meet your friend at a different place next time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary grabs for the girl’s hand, nodding vigorously. “Of course. It will not happen again. Farewell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pulls the girl away from the stall, and then towards the edge of the market. Before she notices it she is running, heart beating wildly. It is all perfect! It has all been worked out, even and fine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She has no idea where she is going, but halfway away the girl starts leading her, taking her further and further into town until they are catching their breath at the lip of that street Mary first chased her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary opens her mouth to exclaim how wonderful it all is, and the girl slams her against the wall, her arm against her throat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Wait,” Mary wheezes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why did you do that?” the girl demands.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I thought you were in trouble.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl’s eyes are narrowed. Her breath is hot, and she’s closer to Mary than anyone ever has been, their legs pressed together with their skirts the only buffer between. Mary’s head feels like it might be flying off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you want from me?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Nothing. I wanted to make friends.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not have any friends,” Mary says. It’s partially a truth- she has no friends. This was not the reason she chose to save the girl. The reason for that is deeper and darker, and she cannot name it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl steps away from her, and Mary can breathe again. It’s not as satisfying as it was before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can repay you,” the girl says. “I can teach you to sew.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The girl looks down at her hands. “You are bad at it. I can teach you to do it correctly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary blinks at her. “What is your name?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks up. “Helen.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is nice to meet you,” Mary says. She holds out her hand. Helen takes it warily, as if it might hurt her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary isn’t entirely sure she’ll come. She thinks about it that night, bright and breathless in the dark, but she waits the whole day and Helen never arrives. Mary realizes that she does not even know if Helen knows where to go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The second day passes, and Mary loses hope. She realizes that she should not have held much hope to begin with, as Helen’s word means nothing. Perhaps it is for the best. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>On the third day, the sun comes weak in the grey sky, and Mary feels tired just standing. She sits, out of view, and peels an apple bit by bit, wishing Dorothy were feeling better so she could return to bed. The door opens, and she lets herself stagger a bit on her way up, bumping her shoulder against the wall a few times to get some feeling there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When she stands, she sees her there. In the doorway. She stands, leaning awkwardly to one side, her hands laced over her stomach. Her hair catches all the sunlight there is and turns gold-white.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You-” Mary says, and then stops, a smile worming its way onto her lips without her permission. Helen’s eyes widen, and her cheeks go red.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did not come here to be </span>
  <em>
    <span>ridiculed</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she says, immediately, and Mary rushes out from behind the counter.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, no, that was not my intention.” She takes Helen’s hand the way she would a companion’s, and Helen snatches it back, close to her chest. Her eyes are wide and wary. Mary looks away, briefly, then back to her. “Forgive me. I was happy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen studies her. Mary can feel her eyes everywhere they touch- her cheeks, her nose, her mouth. Her answer is cocky, almost imperious. “Oh? And why so?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary flushes. “I thought you would not come. You hate me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm.” Helen looks past her. “I do not think of you enough to hate you. We are strangers to each other.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Perhaps.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen brushes by her, all the way into the store. It is as if by having this interaction she has overcome any and all fear of Mary, and Mary finds her dismissiveness loathsome. To think she awaited this moment!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where is your sewing? I will correct it now and then leave.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary isn’t sure what to do, so she fetches the skirt Helen had criticized before. It looks like a dead thing in her hands, crumpled between her fists. Still, she knows how to hold herself with pride. She brings it to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen is seated, without asking, in a chair on the opposite side of the room. She takes the garment from Mary without thanking her. Mary watches her hand as she picks open her bad stitches like old scabs, and tears the hole open again. She does it easily, even eagerly, and Mary scrambles when she asks her for a needle. She brings it, ignoring Helen’s imperious stare.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stands over her as she works, amazed at her dexterity, speed, precision. When she squints, it seems like Helen is not sewing but doing something entirely different. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mother showed her how to sew, with quick and jabbing motions. She and Anne had been taught side by side, both of them silent, trying to ignore each other.  Mary was aware that Anne did not think very highly of her. It felt as though they weren’t really sisters at all, but strangers who shared a home. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The only glimpses Mary had caught of Anne was when she had watched that boy, her Charles. How her plain face had split open, and exposed something soft and beautiful. Out the window, she waved to him, her pink fingers flashing as they cut sunlight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen’s fingers flash now, quick and steady. Her head is bowed, as if in prayer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do not stand so close to me,” Helen says, and Mary catches herself leaning towards her. She pulls back, and steps fully away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You sew beautifully,” Mary says, and Helen laughs sharply.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is sewing. It is no more beautiful than eating.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary crosses her arms, and then uncrosses them. She must appear composed. “You take offense so easily.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Perhaps you are sensitive.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There is no reason for us not to be friends.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There are many reasons, Mother Mary,” Helen says, viciously. She still does not look up. “I have already said I do not like you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You do not know me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Helen snaps, and finally looks at her. Her eyes blaze. “You have gentle hands. You can afford kindness to strangers- for </span>
  <em>
    <span>friendship</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ignore me, if you dislike me. Do not-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am trying!” Helen stands. “I am trying to ignore you!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But you have come today.” Mary stares at her, and sees something in her eyes flash. A shift.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I cannot believe I did,” Helen says, and throws down the skirt. The needle is lost immediately, and Mary’s eyes search for it for just a moment, and then she is moving, instinctively, to make a wall between Helen and the door..</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop this!” she commands. Helen ignores her and grabs at her arms to push her away. Mary smacks her hands, and takes her shoulders. They are locked in a strange semi-embrace, pushing and snarling like two wild animals.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you know what I think?” Mary says, at last pushing Helen off her. She points at her. “I think you are cruel, and you are angry. You have chosen to take this out on me- but I am not your enemy, Helen! You must know that!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen is breathing heavily. Her eyes flutter over Mary’s face, as if searching for a drop of ridicule or scorn. Mary scowls. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have come all this way. You might at least teach me to sew, as you said you might.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen’s face turns contemplative, and then aggressive. Her mouth twists, and she opens it to spit out, “I will.” She looks so unhappy about it that, had Mary not spent the last minutes attempting to persuade her, she would have let her leave. But Helen marches back to the chair and picks up the skirt once more.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Here,” she says. “I will do it very slowly. Perhaps you can follow my slow movement and attempt to not sew as if you are locked in a dark room.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their first lesson is short and begrudging. Helen stammers when Mary frustrates her, and hurls the finished skirt when she is done, leaving in a hurry when Mary fetches it from across the room. The next day, however, she returns. Her cheeks are flushed and her eyes are downcast. She makes no excuses.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They sit far from each other, and then closer, so Mary can see, and then next to each other. Helen leans over her shoulder, touching the places where she has muddled the thread, but gently. Her voice is even, and slow: “no, here. And do not pull too tightly. Yes. And again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She does not come every day, and she does not stay for very long. Once, she comes with Mary to the baker’s home, and waits outside. When Mary comes out, she sees her leaning with her eyes closed, head thrown back. She cannot breathe for a few minutes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen is taller than her, and more developed. Mary’s eyes find, with envy, the places that Helen is full where she is near concave. Her skin is pale and smooth as a lady’s. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes, Mary feels that perhaps Helen is not who she says she is, but a secret princess, or a fairy queen. If she is nice to her, and quiet so she will not scare her away, one day Helen will give her riches and luck. Though, Mary finds she would not mind if Helen gave her nothing but this. Just stay, she thinks. Stay, just like this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are very bad at sewing,” she comments, as she always does, on their fifth time together. “I do not think you will ever be good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not need to be good,” Mary points out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is a seamstress’s shop, Mary.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will marry someone, and he will not care whether or not I sew.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He will care that your dresses are riddled with holes and made ugly with thread.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not think he will.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen rolls her eyes and frowns, and Mary lets her fix her skirt. Eventually, she has Helen do her sewing, too. She wouldn’t let her if Helen didn’t seem to enjoy it so much, sitting there bright-eyed with her needle flashing like a fish jumping in and out of the sea.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Their alliance is tentative. Helen seems not to trust Mary at all, with which Mary is content. She does not ask anything of her, but neither does Mary. She thinks that they have entered a strange territory that would not exist without the needle and thread, but she is grateful for it. It does feel like they are friends.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Friends. Something like that. Mary talks nonstop of her home, her life before this job, and Helen mentions that her mother expects her home before the sun goes down. It works, for the most part. Helen is a good listener, and she laughs at Mary at the right places. And the wrong places- the right places are important too, Mary decides. Helen is not mean, but she is sharp and sometimes cruel. Mary thinks of this as a necessary part of their bond.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary asks her, once, weeks in, “Where would you want to go?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When?” Helen asks. She is folding and stitching, her face happy and relaxed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary leans on the counter to watch her. “Any time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I would go… to the countryside. Where the shadows grow sweet and long.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That seems nice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And there is a wild apple tree, and I climb it, and eat apples all day.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can I come with you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen looks up briefly at Mary, and then down again when she realizes she is watching her. Her mouth gets a bit of a quirk, which Mary has decided is almost like a blush for her. She feels giddy at this, for some reason. “I am not going, Mary.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why not?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I cannot go. I do not have the time.” Helen looks at the door, at the light that falls there. “I do not have time now. I have to go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She sets down her work and stands, brushing her skirt. Mary watches her, feeling another odd feeling rising in her throat. “You can stay as long as you wish.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My mother,” Helen says, in lieu of answering, and makes for the door. She has been gone for a few minutes when Mary realizes she has forgotten to give her some earnings.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is another thing that separates them from real friends- she pays Helen. It is only fair, as she does all her work, and Helen says she is alright with even the meager amount that Mary provides. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The night is dark, but she is not tired, and so she haunts the shop portion of her aunt’s home, touching the places Helen has touched and wondering what she will do. Practically, she needs Helen to pick up the slack she will accumulate. Her aunt trusts her work now, running her fingers over the neat stitches and smiling, because Helen does it all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anything besides this- no, she does not need her. She does not want her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary doesn’t realize she’s waiting for her until she sees her, coming down the street with her arms wrapped around herself. Her head is down; her hair falls pale across her shoulders, her face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Relief sweeps through Mary, mingled with fear, and she rushes out the door without thinking. Helen doesn’t look up as she approaches, Mary coming much faster than she.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they meet, Mary is out of breath. She grabs Helen’s shoulders, and Helen flinches in surprise, looking up to recognize her. She has been crying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary doesn’t know what her purpose is- she wants to demand an answer, she thinks, but it suddenly seems cruel. Helen stares at her, appraising as always, but it must be as difficult as it is for Mary to parse her true reaction. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then Helen surprises her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She </span>
  <em>
    <span>hugs </span>
  </em>
  <span>her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen has, thus far, avoided most physical contact. She does not jump away from Mary at any given opportunity, will sometimes guide Mary’s hands with her own, cool, dry ones, but she does not lay her hand on her arm or back, or pet her hair, or do anything Mary believes approximate to affection with one’s companions. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>That being said, hugging is not the kind of affection that </span>
  <em>
    <span>would</span>
  </em>
  <span> be approximate. Her mother has not hugged her, and Anne never would of her own accord. She has been held, of course, as a baby and child, coddled and corralled, but not like this. Helen clings to her, her face buried in her shoulder, her hands desperate on her back. Their bodies are stacked, close as spoons in a drawer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary is confused, but she reacts before she can think. She holds her. Her body is warm, even hot, and she can feel the tangles of her hair at her fingers. For one moment, she realizes that </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> is what she wanted from her, all along, this closeness. From the first moment their eyes met, that smile, she wished that she could hold her in place, understand her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her thoughts return to her, and she realizes that this is all very strange, and that they are still not friends, and that she doesn’t know why Helen is crying at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mary,” Helen says, and she feels it through her dress, on her skin. She shudders. “Take me away from here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Go where?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What happened, Helen?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen gulps breath. She quiets, and goes still. Finally, she pulls herself away from Mary, face down. She is ashamed. Mary has never seen this kind of face on her before.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not want to tell you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary nods, slowly. She wonders if she should demand that she reveal herself to her- but she does not want to push this away. Helen glances over her shoulder, and Mary, without thinking, catches her chin and turns her face back to hers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know a place,” she says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She does not even stop back at the shop to tell Dorothy she is leaving; Dorothy does not care what she does, and in many ways is more self-reliant than Mary herself. Taking Helen’s hand, cool and dry, in hers, she leads her down the road, thankful that there is no one out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a while she wonders what she had been thinking, as she barely knows the way, but when they adjoin the street she remembers their carriage travelling down as a girl, she feels her confidence return.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is only a little further she says,” tugging Helen after her. Silently, she nods. She seems a lost child, trailing after Mary, tears still drying on her face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>only a little further. It takes them at least an hour, struggling up the dirt road with their shoes sinking into the mud, until Mary recognizes the surroundings at last and stops.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Here,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen looks around, and laughs, a little burst of it. “This?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This,” Mary assures her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen steps off the road into the grass that lines it. Here is a field, thick with tall, wild grass. And then, farther off but reachable, the apple orchard.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They make their way through the field- the mud here is coarser and more compact than the road, somehow, but their shoes still stick and their dresses catch burs that will have to be plucked carefully away tomorrow. Mary does not think of this- she watches Helen’s face as they approach.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have brought me to apples,” Helen observes. “You were paying attention.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Mary breathes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen reaches out and touches the gnarled trunk, her hand moon-pale against the thick bark. “These are not quite what I had in mind. Wild apples clinging to the edge of a grassfield.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary’s heart sinks, but Helen turns to her and smiles. It is a shocking thing, just as lovely as she has dreamt it would be, but still so, so much better in person. It is open, and honest, and it makes Mary’s chest glow warm as an ember. How can there be so much inside her, for this single action?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen strokes the tree again, and then she reaches up to grab a branch. Nimbly, she pulls herself up, and perches like a bird. “Come up with me,” she says, and extends a hand down to Mary.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She takes it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She has never climbed a tree before, and finds it slightly unpleasant to be high up, but to have Helen’s patient eyes on her makes her braver. They perch high on a limb, Helen with her legs hanging carelessly over the edge and Mary clinging to the trunk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It smells quite pleasant,” Helen says, lifting her face to the stirring wind. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Quite,” Mary says. She is too frightened to take a deep breath; she takes her word for it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen is silent for a while. They watch the field, admiring the way the moon makes the grass silver. It seems to Mary like the sea, rippling just a bit in the breeze.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wish I could see the ocean,” Mary says, suddenly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She expects Helen to laugh, to have something to say, but she is silent. Mary continues, awkwardly. “It seems like a nice place. Perhaps the man I marry will have a summer home on the sea I can visit.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen laughs. “What different lives we lead,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We live in the same town,” Mary argues. She is afraid that Helen will make fun of her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You do not </span>
  <em>
    <span>really </span>
  </em>
  <span>live in town,” Helen smiles. “And even if you did, you sew for your living. You do not even need to sew </span>
  <em>
    <span>well</span>
  </em>
  <span>. Do you know that I only come to your side of town for you? Otherwise, I doubt I would spend much time there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh,” Mary says, caught off-guard by this profession. It feels like a bigger deal than Helen is making it to be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You called me a whore the first time we met,” Helen says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary flushes. “I am so sorry. I was simply- I did not mean to say that, or implicate you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You do not need to apologize. You were not wrong.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary says nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My mother is one, at least. And I live in a whorehouse, so perhaps that is enough to make me one. Though she does not allow me to take customers. Not yet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary still says nothing. What is there to say? This is her gift from the fairy queen. This is the story, the understanding she always sought of her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And tonight, I- without her permission, I invited a man to my rooms. I have always grown up around sex, you know, it is not scary to me. I always believed that the way we do it is better, because those girls would be made to do it anyway in marriages, and they will not be paid for it. And I have always thought that being scared is a waste, and I must do everything quickly so to get it over with, but- I was-” Helen takes a sudden, violent breath, and Mary realizes she is crying once again. “I was so frightened of him. I was not even naked yet and I was so scared of him. And I called for my mother, and she came in and she was so angry at me- and so I ran away from her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She stops, abruptly. This seems the end of her story.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do not judge me, Mother Mary,” Helen says, hoarsely. Her arms are around her stomach, as if she has a stomachache. “I know the life you live, and now you know mine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have no intention of judging you,” Mary says. “Mary Magdalene was a prostitute.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen scrubs her hands over her face. “Do you feel a devout Christian, then? And I am not a prostitute, I am a failed prostitute.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is such a ridiculous thing to say- what a ridiculous conversation, a conversation Mary never could have imagined having- that she almost laughs. And then Helen </span>
  <em>
    <span>does </span>
  </em>
  <span>laugh, like she cannot help herself, and then they are nearly howling, clutching at each other as they nearly fall off the branch.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If my mother knew I was having such a conversation,” Mary says, wiping her eyes, “she would faint dead away.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am glad you did not faint,” Helen says. “It is a promising sign of character.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary shakes her head. “I know we are very different.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So you admit it now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought you might think me dull,” Mary says, without thinking, and Helen cackles at her as she blushes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought you were dull,” Helen says, her smile like a cat’s. “Your ridiculous speech about you not being my enemy. And you are terrible at sewing, for a lady.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop,” Mary says, swatting her. She waits, but Helen does not continue. “Did you ever stop thinking me dull?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen tilts her head, still grinning. “It was less that I found you less dull and more that I accepted you for your essential dullness.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary scoffs, and puts on a voice like her mother’s. “How dare you! I am incredibly interesting.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you prove that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well…” Mary scrunches up her, face searching her whole fifteen years for evidence. “I have had a lifelong fear of ducks.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen bursts out laughing. “Mary! That is the dullest thing I’ve ever heard!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is not! How many people do you know who are afraid of ducks? It is very interesting!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I cannot help but disagree.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, beyond your scathing personality, what is so interesting about you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen shrugs. “I do not need to be interesting. I am pretty.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary’s laugh dies in her throat, and something cold drops in her stomach. She knows she should not care, knows that this is simply a jest on Helen’s part, playing a part, but the joke does not seem so funny at this moment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen notices, after a moment, and Mary catches her eyes widening. “Wait,” Helen says, quickly. “I did not mean that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, no,” Mary says, trying to save the moment. “You are very pretty.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did not mean to imply that you were not. You are also pretty, Mary. You are very striking.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary scoffs, unable to stop herself. Here is Helen, who is certainly more beautiful than any of the women in town, with her downy hair and those eyes, and those lips. Even in the darkness, she is entirely luminous. The star the world revolves around. The sun must be jealous.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I mean it,” Helen says, catching hold of Mary’s arm. She has slid closer to her during their fits of laughter, and she comes closer to now, so Mary feels her heat. One of Helen’s arms encircles her from behind, catching her waist. Mary feels she might pop open.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do not be mad,” Helen says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am not mad,” Mary says. Truly, this idea is ridiculous. “Do not worry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, I am-” Helen makes a noise of frustration. “I do not know why it is so difficult for me to be kind. I am so childish.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I understand when you are joking.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Perhaps.” Helen looks away from her. “But I do not tell you what I am really thinking very often, and there are many things I want to say to you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary takes a slow breath, unsure of what exactly she is feeling. Helen’s words are quiet, a secret for them alone. She realizes the intimacy of this scene is leagues away from anything they’ve shared before, and she does not know what to do with it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Say them now,” Mary says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am scared to,” Helen says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary shakes her head, but she cannot laugh. It is all too bright inside for this to be funny. “Do not be scared.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Perhaps I have always been scared of you,” Helen says. “Even from the first moment I saw you. You may not remember. It was in the market, and you were with your mother- I am not certain why you were in town, or why I was, but you looked at me and you had the funniest look on your face…”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I remember,” Mary breathes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen looks at her. “What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That day. I remember you from that day.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Really?” Mary looks at her, and their faces are very close together. Helen’s wonder is the brightest expression she has ever seen her make. “Is that why you chased me? When we collided?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes!” Mary says, and laughs. This is truly like something from one of her dreams. “I thought if I could catch you, I could make you tell me what made you smirk at me that day.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Smirk?” Helen asks, snorting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sneer, then,” Mary amends. “You looked at me like I was a piece of rotten fruit smashed and smeared in the mud.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That is what I meant,” Helen hurried, “see, see, Mary, this is what I mean. When I first saw you, I was- struck, and I reacted the way I always do, and that was not what I meant to do.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary gives a short laugh. “Then how did you first think of me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen shakes her head. “I was struck. I cannot describe it any other way- I was very struck, and that scared me very much.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not understand.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not understand, either,” Helen says, or breathes. She rests her head on Mary’s shoulder, and her fingers piano their hold on Mary’s side. Mary shivers, and hopes Helen does not notice. “It was just frightening. And when you tried to become close to me, later, that also terrified me. But I wanted to be closer to you, too. So I goaded you, until I had trapped myself, and then I became scared again, and so I was closed off and did not tell you anything- I do not think I am making any sense.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe you are driven mad by the cold,” Mary suggests. It is meant to be a joke, but everything shared in this proximity comes out solemn as a prayer.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not understand these feelings,” Helen says. “About you. I want to understand them, but I cannot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks up at Mary. Mary can feel her breath, and she thinks, ridiculously, if she just leans forward they will kiss. For a moment, she imagines how her mother would fall down dead if she saw that; Mary, not just friends with but </span>
  <em>
    <span>kissing</span>
  </em>
  <span> a prostitute.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary smiles at her, a little dizzy. “I used to dream about-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen kisses her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a moment, it feels like there is nothing in the world but this, the press of Helen’s mouth on Mary’s, her hand coming up to cup her cheek, gently, and Mary feels that this must be a dream, and that she has done this, in a dream. She has done this a million times in her dreams, she thinks, drunkenly, because how else would she know to wrap her own arms around her? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They wobble dangerously on the branch, and they break apart to steady themselves. Mary’s heart is either gone or beating so hard she cannot feel it anymore, but she laughs with Helen, and nods when she tells her that they should climb down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then everything changes. Mary does not have a name for what they are doing, but she knows what it is they are doing, so she can overlook that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They kiss, often. They have to do it in Mary’s room, and this presents lovely opportunities like laying down and kissing, or kissing with Mary’s back pressed against the wall. They waste hours, doing nothing but staring at each other, or talking lazy circles around each other about nothing. And kissing, of course. And doing work, because they cannot abandon that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen tells Mary often that she cannot get anything done with her hovering and bothering her, but she smiles so Mary does not believe her. And even if she did, she cannot stop. It is such a wonder to touch her palm to the back of Helen’s lovely neck, and see her turn her face towards her like </span>
  <em>
    <span>she </span>
  </em>
  <span>is the sun.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Time passes, and Helen reveals things about her life so begrudgingly that Mary cannot possibly track its course. She will complain of her mother, but not what her mother did to deserve the criticism. She talks briefly about a friend, but will not tell Mary her name. “It is best that our worlds stay separate,” she reminds her, which Mary does not like to hear at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How can she tell her that she wants their lives to be the same?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In any case, she only knows of where the brothel is. One day she follows Helen to it again, from a far distance, but once Helen makes her way inside she can not bring herself to approach. And what would she do? Go inside, and sit on Helen’s bed, and make Helen cry?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So their lives stay separate. During the day, Mary and Helen stitch, and talk, and kiss. And at night, they sleep in different beds.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One night, Mary wakes to hear screaming.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She bolts upright in her bed, trying to figure out what is going on. The voices are not immediate- they must be very far away. But she cannot sit unknowingly in the dark.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She dresses quickly, and hurries downstairs. From poking her head out just a bit, she knows it is fire. But from where?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She debates getting Dorothy, and then resolves that if she finds that the fire is spreading she will return for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Following the screams is easier when she starts to realize what route she is taking. Fear blossoms, sudden and vivid. It cannot- but is it?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Approaching the street, she screams. It is the brothel. A crowd has gathered- nonsensically, Mary can see policemen, though they don’t seem to be trying to contain the fire. She looks desperately for her, searching for that golden hair she was running her hands through just yesterday, but she does not see her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Where is she?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inside?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary slips through the crowd, yelling her name. No one pays her any attention- too much chaos to care about one girl with her world on fire. “Helen!” Mary calls. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She feels like she is drowning, even with the smoke blowing in her face and making her eyes stream. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The idea that Helen is inside has latched inside her, and she does not think before she runs up the steps and inside. Voices clamor after her, and she realizes immediately that this room is full of fire, much too bright, much too hot. Her mind is fogged over. When she goes to yell Helen’s name, her lungs fill with ash and it burns.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Someone grabs her arm, and she turns. There she is, face lit red and orange. Mary could cry, but Helen is pulling her back towards the door, saying something that Mary cannot hear. She lets her lead her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Together, they break through the crowd, Helen pulling Mary behind her as she dashes. It is faster than Mary was expecting, but she keeps from stumbling somehow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen stops their flight suddenly once they’ve gotten a few streets away, almost halfway home. Mary has regained some semblance of her senses, but she is still coasting the wave of breathless, all-encompassing terror.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What is wrong with you?” Helen demands, throwing Mary away from her. Mary does stumble, and lands on her bottom in the mud. “Why did you do that?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For some reason, Mary thinks she means starting the fire. “I did not…” she murmurs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You could have looked around for just two moments more!” Helen says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did not see you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Clearly!” Helen puts her hands over her face.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do not cry…” Mary says, pushing herself up and reaching for her, but Helen slaps her hands away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They are arresting them!” she says, sharply. “They have blotted out this last unsightly stain on England’s virtues. All of them. And they’ve burned it down, for good measure. All of them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary watches this, scared to touch her. Helen’s angry tears spill down her face, and she looks at the ground. Then, she falls into Mary’s arms, weeping. It is like the last time, but much worse- Mary feels like Helen may fall into pieces as she holds her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can stay with me,” Mary soothes her. “Come, stay with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen says nothing. Her hands scrunch the fabric of Mary’s dress like she cannot let her go.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Dorothy is exceedingly welcoming to Helen, despite Mary not providing any sort of context for her arrival. She agrees to put her up, and presses her wrinkled hands into Helen’s.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How can this place stay open, with so many strays?” Helen murmurs to Mary, as Dorothy toddles away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sometimes I fear that it popped up out of nowhere a few months ago, my mother’s aunt included,” Mary teases. “Like a magic shop.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen rolls her eyes. She is meaner these days, but she almost never lets go of Mary’s hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Life continues as usual, although Helen is over every day instead of most days, and she sleeps in Mary’s bed, just a few inches away from her. They are also exceedingly chaste, compared to the way they were before the fire. Helen does not kiss her anymore, though their closeness is not undone. It feels strangely like a period of mourning after a death.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A day or two after, Helen goes to investigate the prisons. She comes back and reports that her mother is nowhere to be found. “She must have escaped,” Helen theorizes, clearly trying to look disinterested but clearly happy about this. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary wonders if this will all end when Helen’s mother comes. It beats in her throat like a ticking clock- when Helen’s mother comes, she will be taken away. She has no proof of this, of course. She just believes it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They are laying in bed when she brings it up at last. “Do you believe your mother will take you away when she finds you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen, who has her back to Mary, turns. Her face is frowning. “What do you mean?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary flushes. “I am not sure.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is unlikely that my mother will find me again,” Helen says. “She is probably towns away by now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary’s breath catches. “Oh- oh, I am-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen shakes her head. “It is alright. How would she be able to find me? I always knew that she would run. At least I can believe she is safe somewhere.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary watches her for a long time. “Will you tell me about her?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your mother.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her eyes grow soft and faraway, though she answers neutrally, “she is not a very easy woman to describe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Try, then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen hums. “She is very imposing. You have to do everything she says. She says that men are very stupid, and easy to control this way. But she is very beautiful, and she is imposing, and everyone follows her around like lost ducklings.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She sounds as nice as you,” Mary teases.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, she taught me how to be cruel. If you want to blame someone, blame her.” Helen reaches across the bed and takes Mary’s hand in both of hers. She begins to trace the lines of her bones beneath the skin, absent-minded. “She could be kind, though. It was because she was so mean that you felt she was giving you a great gift when she smiled at you.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She must be surviving well, then,” Mary says. “She has bewitched a rich man and is living quite comfortably now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She has done all that in the past week?” Helen asks, skeptically.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary blushes. “Well- not now- maybe in the near future-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are the one who will have a rich husband one day,” Helen says. She scoots closer to Mary so they can press their foreheads together. “Will you have time for me, then?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This thought has never occurred to Mary before. It had been so long since she had even thought about the idea of a husband, of marriage. It makes her recoil, slightly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course,” she says, though she cannot imagine anything but this, and this always. Her and Helen in her bed, and a nameless, faceless man somewhere else. It suddenly makes her frantic. “You will… I will pretend you are my maid, and we will carry on an illicit affair.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen laughs, and Mary bats at her. “Why are you so upset?” Helen asks her, still half-smiling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am not,” Mary argues, though it is fairly obvious to her that she is. Her cheeks flush and her eyes go watery. “I am not upset.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mary,” Helen says, and Mary pulls away from her and turns. She feels hot, and her breathing is fast. It is not until this moment that the idea of the future without Helen has ever even occurred to her, and it is all-encompassing. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good night,” Mary says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hears Helen prop herself up on one elbow, but she still will not turn. At last, Helen leans in and wraps her arms around her. Her cheek presses against Mary’s neck.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do not be sad,” Helen whispers. “You will be happy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary swallows, painfully. “Where will you be?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A long pause. “Happy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not know. And I do not know where you will be either. But I will always be yours, and you will always be mine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do not say that,” Mary says, trying to keep herself from crying. She adopts a strange, stern tone. “I do not want to hear you say that. We have a good many years to be together.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hope so too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not </span>
  <em>
    <span>hope </span>
  </em>
  <span>so, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>know </span>
  </em>
  <span>we do,” Mary says. “Please let go of me and go to sleep.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen does not, and Mary is relieved. She can feel her heartbeat as if it is her own, and she closes her eyes against it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I had never had a friend before you,” Mary says, in the darkness out in front of her. “The house was always empty, except for my sister, and she loathed me. I used to make up imaginary friends to play with.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you think I am imaginary?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I would never dream up someone so stubborn and mean. You are no invention of mine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A laugh no more than a breath, hot against her neck. “So you like me so much because you have never met anyone better.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, that is not it.” Mary traces the shape of Helen’s knuckles. She wants to distill this moment to save in a bottle. She wants to distill the heat of Helen’s body, her brightness, their youth. When she drinks it back, it will burn. “I feel… when I am with you, I am more of myself than I ever have been.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One of Helen’s hands comes free, and she laces her fingers with Mary’s. “I feel the same.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She feels it should not be so easy to recognize her, but she cannot be anyone but Helen’s mother. She has the same piercing eyes, the same nose. Her hair is not the same blonde, but wispy and fine like her daughter’s. In the shop’s main room, she is stark and strange.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good morning,” she says. Her voice is honeyed, and slow. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good morning,” Mary responds, sounding smaller than she means to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen’s mother strides into the room, casting her gaze around. Frantically, Mary wonders if Helen has left anything distinctive laying around. She thanks the Lord that Helen has taken over deliveries today.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have heard that you know my daughter,” Helen’s mother says, dispelling a desperate hope Mary had that this was a fluke. “Helen. I have heard that you are friends.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary opens her mouth, and then shuts it. She wants to lie. That is her first instinct.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She does not want to be removed from her. She wants with all her heart to keep Helen by her side, even an hour more. She </span>
  <em>
    <span>needs </span>
  </em>
  <span>to delay this. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And yet-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She will be married. Her mother has probably already chosen a match for her, and as soon as she returns home, which could be any time, she will be shipped off. And then Helen will be, what, stuck with Dorothy? A woman she barely knows, in a town that knows her as a whore? They will be apart anyway.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she wanted these months. She wanted days, even, more. She would do anything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is cruel, but she must hide her. She must keep her. She will love her enough for both of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Even as she thinks it, she knows what she will say.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know her,” Mary says. It is the bravest thing she has ever had to do, she thinks. Although, it is easy when she sees Helen’s face when she comes through the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is a reunion. Mary watches from afar, feeling a bit awkward, feeling a bit devastated. When Helen finally looks at her, her face is alight with happiness.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Excuse us,” she says to her mother, and brings Mary into the room adjacent. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It takes all of her effort not to cry. Helen’s happiness is half-decayed, touching her wrist, her waist, her shoulder. Gentle touches, with those flashing, dancing hands. “I may still come back,” she says. “I believe my mother will let me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary knows it is a lie, and knows that Helen knows too. But they smile like it will happen, make the plans that they know they will never fulfill. “Let us go back to the orchard, when you return,” Mary says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes. And we will have a great party feast, and eat it all ourselves,” Helen says. She keeps touching her, like she wants to memorize it all. “I cannot wait.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I cannot wait,” Mary echoes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They kiss, briefer than they ever have, Mary’s hands still at her sides so she will not grab Helen and refuse to let her go. She wants to kick and scream and tear her hair out. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You will remember me while I am gone?” Helen whispers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary closes her eyes. “I will remember you always.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Helen leaves her with her eyes closed and her hands empty. She does not hear the door open and shut, but she knows it has. It is over.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In ten years, Mary will receive a letter. It is saved from her husband’s eyes by one of the maids, Martha, a friend of hers, and she takes it to Mary to read in her rooms. The letter has a small message on the front: </span>
  <em>
    <span>for the Lady to read alone.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think it is a love letter! Tell me what it says,” she will beg Mary, and Mary will laugh and break the seal. She cannot imagine who would write her besides her mother, but the thrill of the surprise is novel.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She unfolds it, and reads it. Two sentences. Eleven words. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary inhales sharply. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What does it say?” Martha asks, touching her knee. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When it comes back to her, it comes backwards. She thinks first of those endless months after Helen left with her mother, months Mary spent waiting and watching the people pass on the street. The faces mean nothing to her. She remembers dreaming of her, half-convincing herself that she had dreamed her up in the first place. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But the memories of that truer time come next, and she knows she did not.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>How long has it been since she remembered? Hadn’t she promised to, always? The decade has shaved away her concentration, and she has moved far away from that town, with the orchard down the road. Now, she has her own fruit trees. Now, she walks barefoot along paths and plucks fruit at her own whims, and she is. She is happy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So much life. So much life left, and Helen occupying such a small corner of it, that great unfinished map still unfolding. And yet she is there, and has been there for all of it, Mary thinks. How could she stop recognizing it, how much of her was still fifteen, and learning how to be a person for the very first time?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mary! What does it say?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mary smiles, swallowing hard. All of it, and always, for the rest of her life. “It says ‘I love you’.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>(This note was technically for ch. 4 when I switched them I thought it didn't make sense to swap the notes... anyway if you're reading this for the first time, I published the next chapter before this one and then swapped them for time consistency)<br/>Ahahaha. Here we are four months later, the night I decided to quit my nanowrimo project to write fanfiction instead.<br/>The story of this chapter was this was not meant to be the third chapter and there is a missing chapter that I will be finishing hopefully within the month or some reasonable time.<br/>Big sorry for the gap but Jesus Christ these are so hard to write. I have to dig deep for the angst! Also, I am wayyyyy more of a perfectionist on these since yall seem to like them and I’m worried ab getting them wrong. So I hope you guys like this one! It was a bit tonally different (I thought) and I tried to give Millicent a bit of a happy ending (ie her inspiration returning). It’s not exactly right but I feel satisfied with it.<br/>Anyway, thank you thank you thank you for reading, your comments make my day and give me serious writing fuel when I’m in a slump. Thanks and stay safe!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. London, England, 1604, or Millicent and Hannah Write a Play</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Mentions sex (offscreen) and deals with internalized homophobia based on religion</p></blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Millicent is not looking for her, or even at her. She is trying to watch a play.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>On principle, Millicent never looks away from the stage, even as she is jostled and distracted by the crowd, even as her hands shake and cramp around her pencil, because she cannot miss a moment of action, nor can she miss a moment of dialogue. Everything must be focused, as if she is living inside the world of the actors, as if they are friends and family and lovers and foes. This is how she thinks a writer of plays must be.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is never sure. How can she be sure? There are no books written on the subject that she can find.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In any case, she is sweltering and swaying on her feet, and writing furiously as the actor playing Desdemona fumbles his words. She is not looking, never looking, at the crowd.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What could it be that distracts her? Is it the hair? Later, she feels it must have been the hair. Pale, and catching the sunlight. It is alright for women to bare their heads here- the Globe gathers so many women, loose and carefree. Millicent once saw a woman flash her whole pale tit at a man, probably to entice him to her bed, and no one seemed to care very much. So there is nothing that should be surprising about another blonde head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent will forget, almost as soon as the moment ends, what happened. What she thought. She will remember it much later, and be frightened.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>What she sees is a woman, blonde and tall, with a soft chin and a strong nose. It is a face, a profile, that Millicent knows like her own hands, that mouth she has spent half her life writing words for. Her creation, her Deborah.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent forgets the play. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It cannot be her, but she moves anyway, pushing wildly through the crowd on the floor. Someone tries to shove her away, but she is without the will or ability to care. Her heart sings </span>
  <em>
    <span>Deborah!</span>
  </em>
  <span> Her breath comes in harsh gasps, three soundless syllables.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her hand seeks an elbow, the small of a back, a shoulder, and finds a hand. She clutches at the spectre’s wrist, practically slurring, “Deborah.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The woman turns.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is not her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is pretty, but her face is not familiar. She has pale eyes, and a soft, frowning mouth. She looks at Millicent without a shred of understanding.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who are you?” she asks. Her voice is rough, a little unkind. People around them shift and murmur, annoyed by this distraction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Forgive me,” Millicent says. She draws closer, letting go of her hand. “Forgive- I was- How foolish. I believed you to be someone else.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hm.” The woman is clearly disinterested.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Deborah,” Millicent says, unable to stop herself. “You see, she is the heroine of my epic, you see, and I believed you to be her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This seems to get her attention again. She turns her eyes halfway towards her. “She is real?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, she is a character.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you believed her to be standing in the Globe Theater?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent opens her mouth, and closes it. Her cheeks burn, but she forces herself not to look away. “Well, perhaps.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have seen too many fairy tale plays, then,” she says. But she smiles. It feels like the rarest, most precious thing she can give. Millicent finds herself instantly infatuated.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Perhaps that is true.” Millicent clears her throat. Someone shoves her, and she ignores it. “What is your name?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hannah,” the woman says. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Hannah</span>
  </em>
  <span>. A name deserving of a soliloquy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am Millicent.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And I have already met Deborah,” Hannah says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, no- to meet Deborah you will have to read my play,” Millicent says, wagging her finger. She is very pleased when Hannah smiles again. “It is very good. You will like it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will I?” Hannah looks at the stage, and then back to Millicent. “Is it better than this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They watch Desdemona trip on the edge of her dress. Emilia looks on, seeming vaguely ashamed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anything would be better than this,” Millicent says solemnly, and she thinks if Hannah keeps smiling at her like that she will be set on fire.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She takes her home. No, not that way. To read her play.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They leave early, together. Someone curses at them loudly as they exit, which Millicent thinks makes for a dramatic exit, and she takes her to the room she rents. Hannah looks bemusedly at the portraits Millicent has on the walls, all of which are lopsided and strange, and Millicent names the characters: Deborah, and her fair sister Ann, and the wicked Prince William.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have thought it all out,” Hannah says, touching the papers one by one. Millicent watches, hands on hips. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You think you can put this play on?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Even as a woman?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My breasts do not severely impede my hand’s ability to write,” Millicent answers, seriously.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah sits on Millicent’s bed. She rests her hands in her lap and looks at Millicent. Millicent has never been to the seaside, but she believes Hannah’s eyes must be the kind of sea green they write poems about. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is not sure if Hannah is going to proposition her. A lover she had once had sat on her bed like that and said, “Millicent, make love to me,” and she had. If Hannah says that now, she fears she may faint. She hopes she revives quickly, so they can continue where they left off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Millicent, read me your play,” Hannah says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent very </span>
  <em>
    <span>nearly</span>
  </em>
  <span> faints. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is only able to read the first two scenes before Hannah says she must leave. The light coming in through Millicent’s windows has taken on a buttery, pre-sunset quality, and everything feels right. Just </span>
  <em>
    <span>right</span>
  </em>
  <span>. She cannot, in a poet’s vocabulary, find a better word. Her throat is dry from speaking; the air smells clean; Hannah stands perfectly in her doorway, like it was made for her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Must you?” Millicent asks, hoping she does not sound as if her world is being ripped into two, even halves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am afraid so,” Hannah says, and places a hand on the doorframe. “I did enjoy your play, Millicent. I want to hear the ending.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You cannot skip to the ending. You must read it all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then I shall.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent bites the inside of her cheek to stop her smile from flying off her face. “When?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Tomorrow. Millicent finds Hannah’s home in the hills after a long trek, after which she decides she shall never be able to walk again. Millicent is fine-boned, and weak, and she is not cut out for hikes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah owns a farm. Rather, her husband owned a farm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“He left,” Hannah explains, when she finds Millicent leaned up against the front door. She is fetchingly dusty, and her hair is braided in the unruly kind of way that leaves little wisps of it hanging around her head. Millicent likes it very much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And they have not tried to take it from you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I send my sons with the produce to market, and no one questions it.” Hannah kicks the side of the house, and little mud clods rain from her shoes. Millicent kicks the house, and jams her toe so badly she can’t speak for a few minutes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She meets Hannah’s sons, John and Peter. John has sandy blonde hair, sort of like his mother, and is very polite, and Peter doesn’t speak at all. He doesn’t even look at her. Millicent is not too insulted. She tells him that she also hates strangers, and then leaves with Hannah into the other room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Now they are in Hannah’s bedroom. It is midmorning, just after breakfast, but a bedroom is a bedroom. Millicent makes a silent bet with herself as to how long this little game is going to go one before they finally break down and do it. She guesses a week. The two bible names have clued her in on a potential threat to the immediacy of being invited into Hannah’s bed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have been thinking all night about you,” Hannah says. This is a surprisingly good sign!</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me too,” Millicent agrees.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I truly do not know what will happen next in your play.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah,” Millicent says, nodding like this was always what she assumed she meant. “Well. I am a very good writer.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will you read me the rest?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent thinks about it for a second, and then says, “I will read you two more scenes. And that way you will think about me all of tonight, too.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah nods. Millicent cannot tell if her expression is salacious or just annoyed. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You should not have to take in a play all at once. Having it all in two hours is a criminal act that robs the best art of meaning,” she explains.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I suppose you are right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You do not have to suppose. I am always right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are quite confident, Millicent.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.” Millicent grins. “I must be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because no one can take anything from a confident person. If a confident person says that the world is theirs it is very hard to refuse them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You want the world.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want…” Millicent considers saying </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> but she doesn’t want to push it, “lots of things.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well. I want to hear some more of your play.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent reads. She tries to infuse humor and life into it. She tries to be a good actress. Sometimes it works- Hannah will sometimes laugh at the appropriate parts. Then again, she sometimes laughs where it is not appropriate at all, which is embarrassing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is over too quick. Millicent puts her manuscript down and looks at Hannah. She has her eyes closed, her mouth sort of twisted in concentration. When she opens them, she definitely looks annoyed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I wish I could hear it all.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am very sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not think you are.” Hannah stands, brushing her skirt like there are crumbs on it. “Do penance. Come make my rounds with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent laughs shortly, but Hannah stares at her seriously. Her smile fades.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The farm is less muddy than Millicent was anticipating, but they still walk a great deal more than she was initially intending upon her arrival. Hannah seems excited about it, though, so Millicent makes an effort to not be grumpy. She marvels over the fields, when Hannah points them out, and expresses admiration over the various planting techniques she does not understand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“This is my favorite part of the farm,” Hannah says, after an hour has gone by. Millicent is sweating in places she should not be sweating (the backs of her knees, the tops of her feet, possibly her belly button) and choking on air, standing up at the top of one of her fields.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She looks up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is beautiful. Like a tapestry- or a quilt, she thinks dimly. The world is made up of squares and hills and light falling over squares and hills, orange and brown and green and yellow. She has not seen fall come down on London like this since she was a little girl.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, it is-” Millicent begins.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is as if from God’s hands, yes?” Hannah says. She stands above where Millicent has crouched to catch her breath, and from below the sun lights one side of her face. She runs her fingers through her hair and closes her eyes. So that’s it- she closes her eyes when she wants to enjoy something. “I think clearest here.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not get to see the city like this often,” Millicent says. “It is almost worth it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Worth what?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent makes a face. “Walking.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah laughs, and she looks down at her. “I suppose it is not the work you prefer. You prefer to move your pen and not your legs.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am not very strong.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everyone is strong enough to climb hills, Millicent.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fine. But I dislike hills on principle.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Even when they have views like this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“An exception, then.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah squats beside her, turning again towards the view. “You are fine company.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent smiles, sort of stupidly. It isn’t even really a compliment, just a statement. She realizes, though, that she believes Hannah is not the kind of woman who says things lightly. Takes things lightly. Perhaps she is searching for someone real.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She feels she should warn her- Millicent has hurt people, like this. Still, the wind comes quietly through her hair, and she feels vaguely like she might enjoy something like this, after all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent is </span>
  <em>
    <span>not </span>
  </em>
  <span>real. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is real in the play world. She comes alive when she’s writing. But she is never real in love, and she is not sure what advantages there are to being so.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For example: </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If she were in real love with Hannah, she would be struck down dead at the thought of going swimming with her, the late fall afternoon having grown hot and Hannah offering to show her a small pond.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah leans against the wall of her own room, her face calm and open. “Come swimming with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent laughs. She is standing, at the edge of breathing heavily. She has just completed the first act, and she’s feeling the blissful faintness she gets after performing something specifically dramatic. She especially liked listening to Hannah’s quiet interjections- though, interjections seems too violent a word. All she does is nod gently, or screw up her face a little bit, or let out a breath. It makes Millicent feel so elated she gets distracted. Once she actually stops, her eyes having slid completely off the page to watch Hannah laugh.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That woman, who looks like a portrait, who looks carved out of gold, wants to take her swimming.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not know how to swim,” Millicent confesses, when Hannah does not laugh with her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is not so hard. Only floating.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am not sure I can do that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everyone can float. Just because you can write well does not mean you are not human.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You think I can write well?” Millicent says, already flushing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah pretends to fan her, as if she may faint. “Calm down, Millicent, I never professed love. Come swimming with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent looks away, trying to imagine an excuse. For a moment, she wonders why she is hesitating. If it had been anyone else, any woman who looked at her coyly and suggested they spend some time together unclothed, she would have jumped at the chance. But Hannah was decidedly different. She wishes she could figure out when and why she decided the way she had.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I shall,” Millicent says, at last, and sets her manuscript down on a table. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah leads her through the house, and they pass her sons on the way. Peter’s eyes catch hers like hooks. Perhaps he can smell her untoward thoughts. Perhaps this is common in children- she would not know.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“We are going, now,” Hannah says to her boys. “Make sure you get everything done by the time I am back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>John nods and gets to his feet. His smile has absolutely nothing behind it. “Okay. Good morning, Millicent.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Good morning,” she says, fairly certain they can call it a ‘good day’ by now. Maybe she should have corrected him, in a joking way. She feels confused, as if Peter and John’s opinions stretch into Hannah’s and will corrupt her mind away from Millicent.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Peter says nothing. His eyes follow her out the door.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They go into the hills, Hannah leading with a surety that can only come from a traveller going down paths long-tread. “How long have you lived here?” she asks, between wheezes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She fears for a moment Hannah does not hear her- on the steep hill, the buzzing of insects and wind fill the space between them entirely. But Hannah answers, at last. “My entire life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Truly?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes. I was raised here.” She stretches her arms out, almost as if to take flight. She does not turn, but Millicent does not mind. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You seemed so out of place in the city,” Millicent teases. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not often go. Not for pleasure.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why? It is full..”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah turns then, her smile soft on her face. “What do you mean?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ah-” Millicent says, realizing that she has said something strange. “I mean, it is full of sights. Smells. Sounds. You can never get bored there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is too crude for me,” Hannah says, bluntly. “My husband met his new wife there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Did he,” Millicent says. She is annoyed at herself for bringing it up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“The city is not at fault,” Hannah says, at last. They reach the top of the hill, and the place where Hannah showed her the valley. Millicent stops there for only a moment, expecting Hannah to again show her the world anew, but Hannah passes through it and into the woods as if there is nothing significant at all about the place. Millicent has to sprint to catch up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Together, they make their way. Hannah does not talk much, but she occasionally laughs at Millicent when she trips, or whacks a branch out of her face. “Your feelings about walking have not changed,” she observes, and then continues on. Millicent wishes the pond would appear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And at the same time, a small part of her wishes it would not. She wants to savor </span>
  <em>
    <span>this</span>
  </em>
  <span> moment, and she feels that there cannot be many more of them. Maybe she does not know what she wants.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The pond is larger than Millicent was expecting, and the green slop and mud that float on top of and around it are not at all the kind of things Millicent wanted from this romantic afternoon. Undeterred, Hannah strips her dress off. Millicent turns away, suddenly shy, and fumbles her clothes off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She practically closes her eyes as she submerges herself, and she is immediately off balance and repulsed. The pond is ice-cold, as well. This is not the kind of enjoyable activity that Millicent would have liked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You look disgusted,” Hannah notes, and Millicent attempts to school her expression.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hope I have not offended you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course not,” Hannah says, and Millicent finally looks at her. She is very relieved that Hannah is submerged almost up until her head. “Those things do not matter to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent tilts her head and smiles. “What does?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What does matter to you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah stares at her in a way that suggests she is being very strange, and Millicent ducks her head away. What is wrong with her today?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I suppose the most- it has always been the sky.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent looks back to her. Hannah is not looking at her at all, but rather upwards. Her hair is done up, but those small blonde trails sag into the water. Her eyes are full of light. “Since I was a girl- I think I cared most for the sky.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent watches her. It is strange. It is like watching someone perform, but it is real. Raw. She wonders if there will ever be an opportunity for Hannah to perform in her play, be her Deborah for real, but she knows that this will never come to pass. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is an abstract love.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Perhaps.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I believed when I was a girl that my arms would turn into wings.” Hannah lifts her arms suddenly from the water, and Millicent couldn’t look away if she wanted to as Hannah tilts her hands, spreads her fingers flat upwards, and tilts a blue shadow onto her face. “That is a strange thing. It explains why, though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent nods, already trying to fit this speech into someone else’s mouth in her mind and failing; she cannot imagine a character who is Hannah, because she feels suddenly and vividly that she does not </span>
  <em>
    <span>know </span>
  </em>
  <span>Hannah. She does not understand her fascination with her, this sturdy and wise woman who could have any man she wanted if she turned her head the right way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah looks suddenly to her. “Do I bore you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No!” Millicent says, splashing at the water in her haste to answer. “No, forgive me- I was lost in my thoughts.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah looks down at herself, pale eyes shifting like jewels under light. Her lips are pearl-perfect.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I find you so vibrant,” Hannah says. “I worry that you indulge me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you talking about?” Millicent demands. “I do not indulge anything I am not strictly enamored with.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah closes her eyes. “It frightens me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What does?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sometimes I fear I feel too much,” she says. “I feel I may be overcome.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent is perfectly silent, feeling like a magnificent swan has set down in the water a few feet from her and not in a mind to scare it off.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Your words touch me so deeply.” Hannah breathes slowly through her mouth, eyes still closed, looking like a statue. “Everything you write is bracing as a symphony, and emotions overflow and well up, and there is betrayal and love, just like any play, but yours is more real because I always felt that perhaps you also have an excess of emotion, and you can display it so purely as no one else can.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent is speechless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span> Her eyes open and they flit nervously to Millicent’s face. “I hope I have not offended you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have not,” Millicent affirms, carefully. “I am- I am so grateful to you for speaking of me like that, but I fear… perhaps I am not as you think.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah’s confusion is clear on her face. Millicent scrabbles for the right words.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I do not think I have an excess of emotion. I fear that I have only the stunted ends of emotion, like burnt sticks, and I can only pretend.” Millicent flushes, suddenly very embarrassed to be saying all this. “Forgive me- you said such a kind thing, and I-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Even if this is so, you are not deficient,” Hannah says, and comes towards her in the water. Her eyes are wide, and they reflect the water and the light. Millicent wonders if all things, every part of the world could travel through Hannah’s eyes and emerge as beautiful as she is, as beautiful as Millicent feels when Hannah looks at her. “Millicent. I do not think any part of you is deficient, no matter how you feel- I am sure, though, that the sticks are not burnt. They are the right length.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She touches Millicent’s cheek, so delicately, with the tips of her fingers. Millicent reaches up and holds her hand against her face, feeling the steady warmth of her, so close and so dear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If that is true,” Millicent says. “Perhaps we were made for each other.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She is aware of Hannah’s nakedness, of her own, but the thrill it gives her is not one of lust, old tracks she has trod before. She feels like the raw matter from which stars are forged, as if they are old gods standing in the empty expanse of the fledgling universe.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have always thought-” Hannah says, and ducks her head, speaking to the water. “I have always found you familiar. As if we knew each other from a different time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How lucky, to have met you before, and to be meeting you again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent’s voice is slightly hoarse, and her words, while they should feel ridiculous, a ploy, ring truer than any she has ever written.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to know you,” Hannah says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me too,” Millicent says, and laughs. Their voices are shaky and low, fumbling like girls with their very first loves.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She kisses her softly on the mouth, slow. They are so far away from each other, but Millicent still has a desperate fear that Hannah will dart away from her. Hannah, however, does not. She draws Millicent’s face closer, her body closer, with the hand tucked into her hair.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Millicent,” she says, breaking away from her, and her breath is hot and sweet. Her eyes are frantic. “Millicent.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They return late, Hannah barely able to look at her. At first, Millicent thought it was mere shyness, or coyness, but she suspects something is wrong when Hannah tells her goodbye so tersely that she cannot even ask when she should return.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her stomach swoops low, sick with the wrongness of it as she goes home. Her heart is still beating fast- she cannot believe how they kissed in the pond. How they touched as they sundried on the rocks. How the words came shakily from her stomach and up, squeezing past her lungs, hovering in the back of her throat so the slightest provocation would allow them free, </span>
  <em>
    <span>I love-</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>Three days later, Millicent does not know what to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mind has been occupied with Hannah, and she takes up so much space that Millicent cannot even fathom writing, or attending a play, or even thinking. Their words play in an endless loop, and she pores over them, pulling them apart and putting them together wrong, until they are mangled and broken and she is scared that they said nothing, did nothing at all.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She makes the hike to Hannah’s house, shaking the whole way. She cannot remember the last time a woman’s reaction to her gave her even a moment of pause. This is debilitating, a scourge that she has to dig from her flesh and the soft organs below it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah opens the door after Millicent has been pounding it for what feels like hours. Her hair lays loose and lank on her head.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I read the rest of your play,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Millicent says, and realizes all of a sudden that she had left her manuscript on Hannah’s bedside table and had not remembered or noticed. Even now, she can hardly care. “We must speak.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I thought it was good,” Hannah says, flatly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Millicent says impatiently. “May I come in?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah looks out at the fields behind her, and shakes her head. There is an emptiness to her face that Millicent has never seen.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“May I come in please?” Millicent asks. Wind whips at her skirts, making the hairs on her arms and legs stand up sharply. She is afraid. She is so afraid. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did not like the ending,” Hannah says, and she quickly ducks to one side, returning fast as if she is worried Millicent might make a mad dash into her home. In her hands is the play. She hands it over to Millicent. “It was saccharine and out of place.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please,” Millicent says again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah only offers the papers of her manuscript towards her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Stupid play.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is only a play.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It has only ever been a play, and Hannah’s eyes are lost and Millicent did it to her, she knows she did. She feels too much, perhaps, and she will now suffer and torment herself for the crimes they have committed together, their fingers intertwined.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent gasps, and it is almost a scream, twisting from her throat so violently she feels raw. She knocks the papers from Hannah’s hands and the scatter across the muddy ground.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah inhales sharply. “No!” she says, and kneels to pick up the ones that have not already started to wheel away into the wind.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Millicent says. “No, no no no, look at me!” When Hannah does not, it comes from her throat as a scream, “LOOK AT ME, PLEASE, Hannah, </span>
  <em>
    <span>please</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah stands.. Her eyes are red, which makes them paradoxically more blue, and her eyebrows are drawn up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pick them up, please,” Hannah says, so softly that Millicent barely hears her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do not do this to me,” Millicent says, gasping. “I have- I do not want to be apart from you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah shakes her head. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I did not know I could feel this way,” Millicent says. “I have never been real before.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have always been real.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do not do this to me,” Millicent repeats.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah shakes. She screws up her face, and looks away. Millicent can see her hands twitching at her sides, and she does not know if it is to pick up the pages that have not yet been lost or to touch her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you,” Millicent says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hannah says nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you love me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“God knows the treachery of my mind,” Hannah says, slow and deliberate. Forcing the words. “I could not forgive myself the treachery of the tongue.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Millicent stands before Hannah’s closed door, mashing the pages into the mud so they are ruined, so Hannah will never have them and neither will Millicent. Penance, for both of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She breaks all her pencils and quills and hurls her paper out of her window. The drawings she did she rips apart, scattering them like snow across her floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The weeks after are unforgiving. She cannot work, cannot go to performances. She remembers how it felt to not feel and craves that apathy so alien to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When it does come, and she is numb, she realizes that the love for writing that kept her buoyant has also been swallowed down Hannah’s throat, with everything else.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Going shopping is a chore. Being around people is a chore. Pushing through crowds is a chore. Life was different when she thought herself different. Now she is ordinary, dull and mortal.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is during a shopping trip that she sees her. She stands from picking up potatoes and her eyes catch on a glint of gold in the crowd.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a shout, Millicent rushes towards her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It must be her- she has a certainty so absolute it is crushing her. “Wait!” she calls. “Wait- please!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>People dodge her but she has to wriggle between some. She thinks she upturns a cart, and cannot be certain because she’s so near to her, the fabric of her dress soft in Millicent’s palm.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And she turns.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And it is not Hannah, not her strong nose nor her soft chin, this is the face of another woman, a woman that Millicent knows well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Deb-“ Millicent begins, and stops. She can’t catch any air.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Deborah smiles, sadly, and is out from under her fingertips before she can ask why. Or how. She is a ghost in the crowd, gone and gone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And in Millicent’s stomach, a seed of something takes root again.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>(Same as last note ahaha)</p><p>The fact that i finished this within a month of my last chapter… maybe I Am God. Hopefully y'all can understand why i took so long to write this thing since it's more than twice as long as the last chapter (and yet this is prob my least favorite chapter so far whoops)<br/>Ok the next chapter is going to be a TURNING POINT or something, so stay tuned, things might get a little crazy. I am really excited for where this story is going to be heading from here on out sjhfajsdhfkajshdf idk i read back the first chapter and i was like damn you wrote that? I am feeling pretty good about this story rn. Anyway, yeah, look forward to that bc its going to be shorter and a bit different so fingers crossed… a week? That would be incredible.</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Somewhere, Sometime In the 18th Century, or, Hecate and Demeter Have a Chat</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <span>Demeter resides on a rock in the middle of the sea. Hecate is not sure what the name of this island is, but she can tell it is desolate, except for her friend. Stepping onto it, however, it looks as perfectly maintained as the human idea of Eden; fruits droop from boughs like jewels, begging for her to reach out and touch them. Hecate thinks it must be a pity that Demeter is so entirely isolated. No one can enjoy her bounty. Of course, maybe if humans would clear their eyes and remember the old gods they would have plenty of bounty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is an old ache, though. Being forgotten is not so bad, anymore. She spends most of her time wandering, occasionally playing a witch or a ghost just to see what will rile the mortals up most. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She traipses through Demeter’s garden, admiring it, and then begins to make her way up a path, to a house high above her. It is certainly a novel idea (a house!) but maybe Demeter, that traditionalist, has let go of herself a bit.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter is outside, waiting for her. She has a small wooden table, on which there is a teapot and two teacups. Demeter herself sits in a plain dress, looking as Hecate remembered her but duller, in mortal form. Her hair flies across her face as she raises a hand in greeting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I hope it was not trouble to reach me,” Demeter says, as soon as Hecate sits down.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate frowns, uncertain if that is a joke. “Not at all,” she says, hoping Demeter is seeking honesty. “You live here alone?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>Live</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Demeter parrots, and then smiles. Her face is more worn that Hecate remembers, the lines of it soft as folded leather. “Yes. I leave, for a decade or two at a time, but I reside here alone. I do not want my friends to find this place, I find.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Friends</span>
  </em>
  <span>. A joke, perhaps, but she feels that Demeter was being sincere. Hecate touches the side of her teacup, but does not drink. “I never took you for the type to dally among mortals,” she says, quietly.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter, looking more than mortal in her frills and layers, gives her a wry smile. She is sipping the tea with abandon, even seeming to enjoy it. “Things can change. How long has it been since I last saw you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Eight hundred years?” Hecate guesses, tilting her head to the side. “Sometime after the 700s, it becomes quite fuzzy for me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It feels a long time,” Demeter says, her voice wispy with something. “It is strange we have never crossed paths.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You are often in Europe,” Hecate explains. “I do not understand that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That makes Demeter laugh, and Hecate is inexplicably pleased. She has never made Demeter laugh this much before, even if the act seems oddly sad, and makes her oddly angry. “Yes. If I did not have work here, I would leave. I despise this place.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Work?” Hecate asks. She tries the tea, simply because Demeter is drinking so much of it, and the taste is strange on her tongue. When she puts the teacup down, she resolves to not pick it back up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I confess I have found a preoccupation,” Demeter says, and her face grows pensive, like she has something to say but is uncertain how to put it. With some difficulty, she says, “do you remember the goddess Hebe?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The name is familiar, though for a moment Hecate has to think hard. At last, she remembers. “The one who deflowered your priestess,” she says, snapping her fingers. “We all became so tired of her weeping that I transformed their bodies into a rock.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter looks slightly stricken, as if Hecate has insulted her. The wind fills the space between them, a howling non-silence. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why do you think of her?” Hecate asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter drinks her tea, sighs, and places her clasped hands before her on the table. “I gave them life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>These words are so strange that Hecate thinks she has misheard her. “What?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I ensured that they would be born again, and meet each other again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate has heard of such things- at the time when they were in their full power, this would not be completely out of the ordinary. Still-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You placed a curse on them?” Hecate says, slowly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter shakes her head. “No. Well, perhaps it was a curse. I am uncertain.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I am confused.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Demeter says. “I was confused as well.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is not an answer. “Tell me the story,” Hecate says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Through the eyes of the snake, she watches Melete enter the clearing. Heat rises off of her, the mark of the living, and Demeter can taste her in the wind. Mortal, cheeks ruddy. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After watching her so long from afar, Demeter is surprised at how plain Melete is. The bones move below her skin, awkward and angular. She has noticed that the mortals gods choose to cavort with usually have a sort of glow, some extraordinary flush. Melete looks pale, and sick. She wonders how long Melete will truly live, even without her intervention.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete is stumbling and silly. She has travelled far from where Hebe waits, searching for berries to present to her. She picks through the bushes, unable to stop smiling. Demeter does not wait very long. Her snake body is quick, her snake teeth sharp and ready.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She bites her ankle. Melete startles, and Demeter darts away from her stamping feet. Her eyes are wide, confused. There is a moment where Melete spins almost gracefully, and her arms wheel and catch her foot in her hands, and this makes her fall. Demeter knows how quickly the venom moves through a mortal’s body- she can see the dullness in Melete’s eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hebe?” she whispers. Demeter curls away from her. Does she believe she can reach Hebe with that quiet voice. Again, “Hebe?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter can taste her disappointment and anger- just as she stepped into her new life, it was stolen from her, by something small and stupid and careless. Had she only been looking down, she would have seen it coming, and avoided it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter knows this is a lie, but the terror of a mortal’s death is strange to her. Melete’s eyes fail. She cannot draw breath. A god’s poison is not like any other, and it takes her fast.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melete’s fingers only scrabble in the dirt for a little while longer before she goes still. Demeter waits, wanting to slither into the sunlight but not wanting to reveal herself. Even if Hebe is weak, she is still a goddess, and in this form Demeter is uniquely vulnerable. She considers leaving this place, returning to Olympus before Hebe has even discovered her. But something makes her stop- for some reason, she wants to see the look on her face. Some perverse need, she supposes. A fascination.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hebe comes after a long time, moving carefully through the trees. Demeter has never admitted it aloud, but she reminds her of Persephone. Her daughter also liked to walk the earth as a young girl- though she supposes it is not a choice with Hebe.  She calls Melete’s name, seeming only confused when she sees her lying. Demeter cannot tell what she is feeling, but she looks startled. She shakes her body. She holds her hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter can see, or feel, or hear, perhaps, the soul of Melete. She lays an inch or two down, beneath the skin, like she has sunken down into herself. Hebe, a goddess of youth, or life, could not feel this presence. But Demeter knows she is there, knows that she is trying to reach her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Melete,” Hebe says. She smooths her hand over Melete’s forehead, terror vivid upon her lips, her face. When she speaks, it is like she is trying not to wake her. “Where have you gone?”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I am here</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Melete says, her voice swallowed by the demarcation of death. </span>
  <em>
    <span>I am with you</span>
  </em>
  <span>.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter cannot stay. She goes home.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Perhaps decades pass. It is not unusual for a god to withdraw, bored or tired or sick of the human world. Crops thin, but she knows people survive. They have begun to survive without her, without any of them. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Too often, she thinks of them. Too often, she wonders. And she feels Hebe’s grief, insistent and irritating.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think I will do something about her,” Hecate says, once. Demeter knows to whom she is referring, but the look on her friend’s face is too hard. Foolishly, Demeter wants to tell her not to hurt them. Such things are idiocy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do as you will,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She follows her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She listens to Hecate speak to Hebe in the wood, repulsed by Hebe’s transformation. Unchanged though her appearance is, Demeter knows and Hecate knows that there is something broken in her. She can never return to her husband, to her life.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate takes pity. She transforms their bodies into rock, leaving Hebe to decline into the earth. The sight is unseemly- Demeter understands her decision.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Hecate is gone, she stands before them. Their souls are sinking- drifting like leaves. Water flows over stone; the stream still flows. Maybe it will forever, and the rock will sink into the soil and be forgotten. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She closes her eyes. The earth is her domain, but not what lies beneath. Her daughter was taken below, into the depths of Hades, and Demeter understands that only the light of the sun, the wind and the sound of voices, is life. And love. When Persephone returned for the first time, her face was slack and gaunt. She will not call her ‘mother’, even now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If they sink to the underworld, they will drink from the river Lethe. Even Hebe will- a dead god is no better than a dead mortal. If they ever stumble into each other, spirits in the Fields of Asphodel, their hands will pass coldly through each other. Their eyes will slide away. They will not be able to feel the loss- but that does not mean it will not exist.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter feels it, then. Not pity. Grief. She thinks of her daughter- how long has it been since she thought of her daughter? That wild girl, wild eyes and that beautiful smile, who she almost drove to war for. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She thinks of Hebe holding Melete’s hands, her gentle confusion. Demeter is not sure she has ever felt that kind of love, but she knows what it is to love. To grieve. To lose to the Underworld.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>With a thought, she draws their souls from the ground. They are not corporeal, but she can feel like resting on her fingers, delicate as snowflakes. Even now, they search for each other, unable to see or sense what is right in front of them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come back,” Demeter whispers, but they cannot. She does not have the power to raise them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She has heard of something the gods have done- when a lover dies, they encourage them to be reborn. She knows Aphrodite has done it, but also knows that she has always grown too bored to reap what seed she had sown.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter is patient. Demeter is the </span>
  <em>
    <span>goddess </span>
  </em>
  <span>of the harvest. Every year, those stubborn seeds yield, fields returning. It is what she does.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In her fist, she crushes their souls together. They struggle, but she puts pressure on them until they are condensed and hard as a tooth. Carefully, she kneels to the ground, and scratches into the wet earth. This seed will be watered by the tears of what it once was.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter makes a wish. The wish of a god is a powerful thing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__--__</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate looks at her friend. “You meant for them to find each other again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And did they?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter nods. “Yes. Without fail.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You watch them,” Hecate says, and this time it is not a question. Demeter does not look ashamed when she nods.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can play convincingly human. A Mother Superior, an aunt. An idea, once. I try not to disturb them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate shakes her head, and she feels something almost like anger. Maybe frustration is better. She does not know why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You make a mockery of their humanity,” she says. “Let them rest! Let their souls go! Do not toy with them for your amusement.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Amusement?” Demeter demands, and, suddenly, she looms, fiery as the goddess who once let earth die for her daughter. “Do I seem </span>
  <em>
    <span>amused</span>
  </em>
  <span>? I wanted them to find each other- I wanted for them to return to each other, and yet they step away, every time! They waste their gifts, their love, every time! It is like watching someone I love be torn to pieces!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate is silent for a moment, trying to understand. She is afraid for this, for Demeter’s rage, but she needs to understand. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If they cannot be together- why try?” she whispers at last. “Demeter, let them go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I cannot.” Demeter looks away, fire gone. She looks weary, old. She looks like a mortal. “No, I cannot.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She closes her eyes. “I cannot forget that mortal’s longing. Perhaps it is my own curse, but it haunts me.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Demeter walks with Hecate down the island. Hecate watches for the plants to twitch and perk up as she passes, but they are still. Her power is fading, she supposes. Perhaps too much of it is gone in the entanglement of those hopeless lovers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She has become shackled to their repetitive mortality. Hecate longs to free her. She longs for so many things- she wants to go back to the beginning. What has become of this world, a place she thought she knew so well?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Will you come again?” Demeter asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate nods, though she is not sure. It is painful to see Demeter this way, and she has more things to attend to. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>A vague excuse. She wants to see her. She wants to ask her to come with her, though she knows not where she would go. It is lonely here, not a world for them.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Consider releasing them,” Hecate says. “Releasing yourself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter tosses her head back into the wind and smiles. “I know. And I think when they come back this time, I will leave them alone. I will sit on my island, and try to think of beautiful things.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate does not know what to say. Perhaps there is nothing but a cruel existence for gods that should be long dead. She touches Demeter’s cheek with the back of her hand, like a mortal would do to check for fever. The goddess’s face is bloodless, and so it is cold.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will come back,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You will.” Demeter nods. She knows. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Hecate turns from her, she closes her eyes, and for the first time in centuries, she wishes.</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>Here's a Christmas present! this chapter should've taken me a shorter amount of time but finals hit and then I decided to focus on this random other project for a while so... here we are. This one is obviously weird- but I thought it was necessary to explain what was going on with the whole Demeter thing, also to confirm the "incredibly conspicious character with d-name in each chapter is actually demeter!" twist i'm sure i was very good at hiding. Oh, and to clarify, this chapter takes place right before the plot of plof happens, which is why demeter wasn't there.<br/>We're zeroing in on the end here, and I mean that sincerely! The next chapter is (I think) another fun one so I shouldn't take too long with it, and then the last two chapters... well chapter seven if def going to end up being the longest, the outline is about as long as this chapter! But I'll cross that bridge when I get to it I suppose. For now, enjoy the holidays and the new year, and I'll see you soon! Thanks for reading and stay safe!!!!!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0006"><h2>6. America, 1970 CE, or, Melanie and Heidi Skate on Wheels</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Heidi, age 14</b>
</p><p>
  <b>1970</b>
</p><p>
  <span>“Dance with me,” Melanie says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi makes a noise of disgust, and then again to make sure Melanie can hear it over the music. It is loud, here, the brand-new soundsystem of the brand-new rollerdisco blaring in a way that is almost over-eager. Around them, couples are making clumsy loops around the rink, pulling each other along. No one is even dancing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No one’s dancing,” Heidi points out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t ask about anyone else,” Melanie says, grinning. She is always doing unsettling things like that- it is why she and Heidi are bitter enemies.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well I say no,” Heidi says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie groans, totally overdramatic. She leans against the wall, and her dark hair crushes up against her shoulders. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>Heidi</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” she whines. “I want to dance.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then dance with someone else.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are you even </span>
  <em>
    <span>doing </span>
  </em>
  <span>over here?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi cannot help herself from blushing. She knows it is obvious from Melanie’s reaction- the return of her smile, brilliant white in the semi-darkness. Nothing. Heidi is doing nothing, and they both know it. She came here alone, entertaining the idea of skating solo, but when she saw everyone else holding hands she couldn’t bring herself to. She also is uncertain if she could keep her balance on her rented skates while moving quickly and discreetly towards the rest area. So she stands, trying to look cool.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What are </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> doing over here?” Heidi shoots back. “You’re always so intent on bothering me. Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Am I bothering you?” Melanie asks. She’s so annoying. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Constantly,” Heidi says. That’s the truth: she and Melanie have had a well-documented rivalry since middle school. It started with the sixth grade reading competition, which Melanie had undoubtedly cheated at and Heidi had been entirely justified in trying to expose her for. Ever since then they’ve gone toe to toe for dodgeball tournaments (Melanie won, but only because her legs are longer) and science fairs (Heidi won, because she’s smarter) and the monologue for the Thanksgiving play (neither of them had gotten it). And, of course, Melanie likes to bother her. And embarrass her. Drag her out on the roller rink and leave her wobbling and alone, the laughingstock for everyone present.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m so bored,” Melanie complains. “No one will skate with me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She means her friends. Heidi can see them, sitting in a little huddle in the rest area. They watch the boys buying sodas with apparent interest.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to skate with you,” Heidi says firmly. “Just go by yourself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want to go by myself,” Melanie says. “I’d prefer your company. Come on, we can argue while we do it so you can keep pretending like we’re enemies.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi has only just stopped blushing from Melanie’s last question, and this starts the whole process all over again. She looks at the floor and wills her face to be cold. An ice cube. “I’m not a six-year old.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, come on. You used to say I was your rival didn’t you? The sixth grade readathon, you said I was your enemy for all days to come.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You cheated,” Heidi says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So did everyone,” Melanie points out. “You’re the only one who didn’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But you were so flagrant about it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie smiles. “Maybe. Anyway, we’re rivals but come dance with me anyway.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not really dancing to make loops around the rink,” Heidi says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie’s eyes go wide and pleased. She has big dark eyes, and they reflect the lights that dart all over the floor and walls like little galaxies. She also has the best hair out of anyone in their grade, but that’s besides the point at this time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’ll go with me?” Melanie asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi rolls her eyes. “Since you’re so insistent, I’ll skate with you. Towards the rest area. Where I will exit the rink forever.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie reaches over and loops her arm through Heidi’s elbow, so quickly that Heidi couldn’t have avoided it if she tried. This pulls them close together, so Heidi can smell the sweetness of Melanie’s shampoo, and something else that is uniquely her. Something warm, sort of familiar. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Let’s go,” she says, and with no further warning she pulls Heidi along with her into the stream of people.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is obvious instantly to Heidi that she will fall. She has no balance. Making her way around the edge of the rink had been easy enough while clinging to the wall, but this is an entirely different and more terrifying kind of torture. Without meaning to, she grabs Melanie’s shoulder with her other hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie laughs. “Are you having trouble?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Heidi snaps, immediately. Melanie is, of course, perfectly elegant. How she learned to skate is beyond Heidi- for all she knows this is Melanie’s very first time and she’s just naturally good at it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie guides her steadily around the rink, Heidi occasionally making half-hearted attempts to move her feet but not wanting to risk making them both fall.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Stop sawing your legs back and forth,” Melanie says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What does that mean, </span>
  <em>
    <span>sawing</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You have to push at an angle.” Melanie lifts one of her feet and exaggeratedly demonstrates what she means. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can skate,” Heidi says, defensively. “I’m choosing to let you pull me around,”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie laughs. “Okay. Nice to have some company.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They pass Melanie’s friends, who ignore them. Or maybe they don’t see them. Heidi can’t help but think how different they seem from Melanie who, despite being incredibly annoying, at least is smart. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“</span>
  <em>
    <span>What</span>
  </em>
  <span> is so interesting about the boys?” Heidi remarks, without thinking. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hmm?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Everyone is so interested in watching them. Isn’t that why your friends won’t skate with you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie shrugs, and Heidi clings a little tighter, worried she’ll be dislodged. “Isn’t that normal?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Being interested in boys.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi reddens, horrified. “I didn’t mean it like </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie seems to cringe at that, and Heidi doesn’t know if the subject is just touchy or if she is suddenly more aware of their closeness. Or the fact that everyone else skating is a matched set. Boy-girl. If she’s made Melanie uncomfortable, who’s to say she won’t shake Heidi off completely and leave her stranded?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Melanie’s face becomes neutral, and she doesn’t push Heidi away. She keeps on skating until she reaches the area where skaters can step onto carpet. The rest area.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Here’s your stop,” she says, resting her hip against the waist-high partition that walls in the rink. “Enjoy your freedom.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Nothing in her tone suggests the mood has changed. Heidi lets go of Melanie’s shoulder, but their arms remain linked.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Uhm,” she says, and coughs. Still, she does not let go. “I think it wouldn’t be a good idea to leave,” she says, slowly. “I wouldn’t want you to start getting better at skating than me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie nods. “I see, I see. Can’t let me get a leg up, huh?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know your plan.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right.” Melanie reaches and grabs Heidi’s shoulder. Her arm around her is warm, and that same familiar smell is there again. Heidi swallows. “Well then. Shall we?”</span>
</p><p>
  <br/>
  <br/>
</p><p>
  <b>Melanie, age 17</b>
</p><p>
  <b>1973</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t mean to tell her that she loves her, but, like with most things related to Heidi, Melanie cannot help herself. For example: when her mother finally conceded to buy her a bike that had a backseat attachment, Melanie couldn’t help herself from riding it over to Heidi’s and begging her to come ride out into the countryside with her. Heidi, after some pleading, had given in, her smile almost swallowed but lingering at the edges of her mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie loves to ride her bike. She hates her town, hates the heat and the dust smell, which she only realized was there after taking a trip to New York. There, even though it smelled awful, she could take everything in. It was like the world was passing through, a constant wind. Melanie hates stillness, and their town is nothing but still. So she rides.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There are long stretches of dirt road that you can go down and reach the river, or the long flat fields that hum with grasshoppers in the summer. She knows a path you can take to get to a shrivelled apple orchard and this is where she takes Heidi. Another thing: Melanie loves to ride her bike with Heidi on the back. She likes the way Heidi leans her cheek onto her back and puts her arms all the way around her stomach. Being with Heidi is good, always, but Melanie likes it especially when Heidi’s meanness cracks and she leans on Melanie. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is midnight. Melanie’s mother does not like the way she cut her hair- boy short, or as close as she could get without actually being boy short. She did herself, impulsively, because her brain wouldn’t stop rattling around and she was thinking about her body as art because that’s all she thinks about besides Heidi- art, and riding her bike, and New York. She was thinking about how if her body were a painting she would have been dissatisfied with it, wished she could take an eraser and start over. Anyway, her mother didn’t like it and so she rode to Heidi’s because that was what they did when things felt bad. She’d been doing it unconsciously for years, and then did it very consciously on the crowded roller rink floor.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Heidi is so easy to tease</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she’d thought. It only made sense that she’d be so easy to love, too.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are we going to the orchard?” Heidi asks, right next to Melanie’s ear. They are speeding down the road. It is so dark that Melanie would probably not have time to stop if she saw something in the road, going as fast as she is, but she doesn’t really care. Heidi told her before this that her hair looked good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah,” Melanie says, loudly so Melanie will hear her. “I should’ve brought something to eat, sorry.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s okay, I brought some cookies,” Heidi says. “And water. You always forget water.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie is ridiculously pleased that Heidi worries about her. She pumps her legs a bit harder.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When they get there, the night is evening out. It must be one in the morning now. The trees stretch like menacing shadows above them, and Melanie watches Heidi try not to be freaked out by them as she slips off the back of the bike.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What kind of cookies do you have?” Melanie asks, and Heidi shakes the bag out of her backpack. It’s her school one, and she probably had to shake all her books and papers out of it quickly when Melanie came to her window and asked her to come with her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Chocolate chip,” Heidi says, handing her one. “My mom made them.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Thank you,” Melanie says, too out of breath to make a joke. Heidi hands her the water bottle too, and Melanie drinks gratefully. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s wrong with you?” Heidi says, watching Melanie cram the cookie into her mouth. “You’ll make yourself sick if you do that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ll just be sick-” Melanie begins, and chokes. She coughs, drinks more water. She can’t think of anything to say- her mind is everyone at once. Maybe it was a mistake to come here, or bring Heidi here. She likes it when Heidi sees her as slick and funny as possible. </span>
</p><p>
  <span> “Melanie, calm down,” Heidi says, a little disapproving but not enough to sting. Melanie finally swallows, sighs. The night is sweet, even though the air is stagnant. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Melanie,” Heidi says, after awhile has passed with Melanie staring at a tree, her eyes adjusting. “Do you want to sit down?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you,” Melanie says. There will never be a right way to say it, a right time. At least here it is dark, and she cannot see all of Heidi’s trust and love disappear.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t know why she does it now. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean,” Melanie says. “Well. That’s it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi says nothing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Melanie whispers. “I’m so sorry. I wanted so bad to be your friend, Heidi. But I think even back then- I mean, I think I’ve always sort of loved you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had. She’d thought about it, those middle school years, antagonizing her, desperate for her attention. She liked Heidi’s blonde braid, liked the way little wisps of it came free of her braids. She liked her glasses. And she didn’t understand why she only paid attention to her when she was cheating at the readathon, but she didn’t care.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But it’s alright if you don’t,” Melanie says, quickly. “You can even take the bike back alone, and I’ll walk. I swear, Heidi, you don’t ever have to speak to me again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shut up,” Heidi says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s standing a few feet again, her chin tucked into her neck. Her sweater is bunched up her arm on one side, and Melanie gazes absently at it. It is weird how many times she’s imagined this moment, to the point where it doesn’t even seem scary. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry,” Melanie says, again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shut up,” Heidi says. Again. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Well, she had promised she would never talk to her if she didn’t want to. She might as well start now. She tries to take in Heidi’s hair, loose across her shoulders as it almost never is. What little light the moon casts catches and makes it look silver. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After a long time, Heidi says, “are you done?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie, surprised, says, “I was done a long time ago. You were just standing there telling me to shut up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi huffs, annoyed, and takes a step closer. “Well you were just saying nothing. Do you have anything important to say? Anything more?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Melanie says, and the word has only just slipped out of her mouth when Heidi kisses her. She moves quickly, quicker than Melanie has seen her in a while. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Should’ve moved like that when you were trying to win the dodgeball tournament</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Melanie thinks to say, but she can’t speak because Heidi is kissing her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But that can’t be right, because Heidi has never, in any of Melanie’s prospective ideas for what could happen when the truth came out, loved her back. Which seems stupid, in retrospective, because here she is kissing her, and it feels perfect. The best thing and the most normal thing in the world.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Neither of them has done this before it. Is it good? She doesn’t even know. She can’t even think about it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No, she has to. She thinks it’s good. She thinks it’s good.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi pulls herself away. Her thumbs tap, placed symmetrically on Melanie’s shoulders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Heidi says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?” Melanie asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“To what you’re thinking. Yes.” Heidi smiles, and Melanie can see it just barely- see her trying to swallow it away. </span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Heidi, Age 20</b>
</p><p>
  <b>1976</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Melanie has a copy of a magazine that she has put on the apartment table (“dinner table”, but they rarely eat together there because Heidi has school early and Melanie works late). Heidi doesn’t like it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>DYKE, a Quarterly, it’s called. Heidi wonders who gave it to her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>No, she knows who gave it to her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Since coming to New York together, Heidi has made her friends from school and Melanie has made her friends while waitressing and while visiting art galleries. Naturally, the set is widely different. Heidi has been having lunches in bright courtyards with women who dab perfume on just to go to class. Melanie has been drinking with Anne.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi doesn’t like Anne. She doesn’t think Anne likes her either. Anne is short, and she has hair even shorter than Melanie’s. She tells Melanie that she’ll cut her hair for her, when she wants, and Melanie laughs and shrugs and says maybe, as if Heidi can’t do that for her. They live together, after all. They share a bathroom. They share a </span>
  <em>
    <span>bed</span>
  </em>
  <span>. If anyone has a right to cutting Melanie’s hair it is Heidi. And yet Anne continues to suggest it, her green eyes cutting towards Heidi every time as if to judge her reaction.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Besides being unnaturally obsessed with Melanie’s hair, Anne is also different from Heidi in other ways. For one: she doesn’t like the fact that Heidi is trying to become a doctor. “The world doesn’t need another needlessly specialized doctor,” she says, like she has any authority on the subject.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“If only we could subside from the land and all be artisans,” Heidi snaps.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anne shrugs. “Why not? Wouldn’t that be better than all this?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She refers to Heidi’s textbooks, strewn over the table. Heidi wishes she could collect them closer, keep them safer. Once, in high school, someone found her science textbook and took it. She found it half-submerged in the girl’s toilet, and someone had written </span>
  <em>
    <span>DYKE</span>
  </em>
  <span> on it in fat letters. She’d burned it, and told her mother she’d lost it by accident.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I can’t afford to think in hypotheticals. What are you doing to support yourself for the rest of your life?” Heidi asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anne shrugs. “I’m going to keep moving.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she doesn’t move- she stays in New York and she stays by Melanie like a leech. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie is happier here than Heidi has ever seen her, though. Every day, she comes from work looking flushed and intoxicated. Every night, she whispers her ideas for art projects, for when she has the time. “It’s incredible, what these people can do. It makes me want to try everything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then try everything,” Heidi says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie shakes her head. They are close, and Heidi feels it rather than sees it. “Later. I will. I want to.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>When Melanie says things like that, she wants to give her everything. But Melanie is here for herself as much as she is for Heidi. Even if Heidi were able to work more, she wouldn’t be able to support them both. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She had assumed that life together, away from parents, from the prying eyes of their old life, would be easy. Good, and easy. She’d craved it, during those days after they’d told each other everything. Every small longing. Heidi couldn’t count them all, a lifetime of moments when she’d reached out to touch Melanie’s wrist, listen to her laugh, count her breaths as they laid beside each other. Alone in her childhood bedroom, trapped in her house, in her life, she longed for her. More than what she had with her; she could never have enough. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And then the finale- the promises made that they’d go together. More nights in the orchard, memorizing it for beauty instead of imagining it as an escape. Saying goodbye to her parents. Silently thinking that she would rid herself of her past like it was a poison, and she could move into her life with Melanie, easy, content.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But something was there. Between them. She could feel it rumbling, tensing, but she didn’t know when it would strike. Here, while Melanie slept? Here, while she slept alone and Melanie didn’t come home?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Here, on the table. DYKE, a Quarterly. It is an ugly word and Heidi bares her teeth at it, feeling half-foolish.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Where are you</span>
  </em>
  <span>? she thinks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you have a boyfriend?” Heidi’s friends ask her. They are all tall and tanned. Some of them come from California, which has always seemed to Heidi a rare and faraway island vacation. They like Heidi plenty when Heidi is quiet, which is easy because without Melanie by her side she slumps through the day.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Heidi says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, come on. You’re so pretty. Do you want me to set you up? You could probably get someone important. I heard the chairman’s son is handsome.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anne says that there are millions of lesbians in New York who want to take a stand. “They’ve forgotten us,” she snarls. “They left us out. Of their parties, their orgies. There is no gay liberation without us. We are never going to be free like they are!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi wonders privately what the point is bothering with all this. Was Anne worried about being knifed on the street, beaten up? Maybe she shouldn’t wear her hair so short. What did she want? Hadn’t the movement for women already crested, already petered out? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Isn’t she terrific?” Melanie asks her. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Anne. She’s so unafraid.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi smiles without answering. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The man her friends set her up with meets her for lunch. He has sandy blonde hair and holds the door for her while she enters the restaurant. They make small talk over the bread basket, and he asks about her internship.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s not set in stone,” she says, swallowing bread with a gulp of water (her throat is dry). “I think I’ll be recommended, though.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You should. You’re so capable,” he says, and his eyes dart down to the table like he’s paid her a great compliment. She is glad he is so bumbling. Melanie says she is beautiful, but she’s never tested it out before. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie is beautiful. Melanie makes her breakfast when she has a day off, and she shows Heidi every picture she takes. She takes her for a walk in Central Park, puts her arm around her, and doesn’t mind when Heidi flinches away to put on her jacket. She’s cold. She really is.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She studies. She makes more friends- she is more lovable than ever. She comes home to her, or comes home to her absence, and in the meantime she studies.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>And she ignores the magazine. Melanie would notice if she burned it, so she leaves it be.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Melanie, Age 23</b>
</p><p>
  <b>1979</b>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>Something is wrong with Heidi. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie can see it in her face when she comes to pick her up from the outside of the gleaming hospital connected to the medical school, but she isn’t sure if it’s because of something specific that happened or just because that’s how Heidi is sometimes. How she’s been. In New York.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s not like Melanie spends a lot of time looking back into how either of them acted when they were just starting to date, seventeen years old, terrified but oddly charged on that terror. She doesn’t try to hold images of old-Heidi up to new-Heidi, trying to reconcile the braids and the glasses with the way she pins her hair in a neat spiral and doesn’t button her shirt up to the last anymore. But she can’t help but notice that something has shifted, and not just with age. Something has withered. Has died?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t know.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi is upset. Melanie will focus now on this fact and block out the rest. “Hey,” she says as she approaches, watching Heidi drop and stamp her cigarette to a smear on the pavement. “Bad day?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Of course not,” Heidi says, and Melanie knows from her voice that she shouldn’t have asked. That she hadn’t wanted her to ask.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They set off for home in silence. Melanie could fill the air with chatter, but she doesn’t really do that with Heidi. Besides, Heidi doesn’t approve of most of the things she could talk about (she hates it when she brings up Anne especially, or anything to do with “the radicals”, as she so bitingly calls them) and the others are just more of the same  (“no takers yet, but one of them said she might put in a good word with Wellworth, so it’s something”).</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie doesn’t want to be an art teacher. She wants to be an artist, but that’s not quite lucrative enough to make a living in New York. Not by a long shot. She’s practically bent herself in half trying to keep all her plates spinning with the waitressing jobs, while Heidi promises that after med school they’ll be rolling in cash. “Rolling in it,” she promises, stroking Melanie’s hair. Melanie loves when she does that, does anything, in fact, that signifies that she still likes her. That she’s glad to be here, it’s not a waste to be with her. That she still loves her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Does she still fuck you?” Anne asks, unceremoniously, when Melanie tells her about this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“When we have time,” Melanie says, truthfully. The two of them can hardly get enough sleep between them, and they’re both so exhausted every night that at this point they barely spoke. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anne frowns. Her hair is even shorter these days, spiky where it sticks up in the back. Heidi loves Melanie’s hair, and Melanie knows without even asking her that she’d prefer it long, but sometimes she wishes she could just chop it off and get it over with. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mel, you’re twenty-six years old and you’re describing a failing middle-aged marriage,” Anne says. “You’re supposed to be hot-blooded! Rabid with desire!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s been almost ten years since we started dating,” Melanie says, “we’re not exactly newly coupled.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe that’s your problem. Maybe you’ve been with her too long.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie flushes, uncomfortable. “I don’t want- no, I </span>
  <em>
    <span>do </span>
  </em>
  <span>want to be with her. I don’t want us to break up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then what do you want?” Anne asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anne touches Melanie’s arm. Her hands are more masculine than Heidi’s, who usually keeps her fingernails manicured and pristine. And Heidi wouldn’t touch her like this, not in a bar. Not in </span>
  <em>
    <span>this </span>
  </em>
  <span>bar. Not in any bar. Heidi doesn’t drink. She doesn’t approve of it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want her to be happy,” Melanie says. “I want us to have an easy life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She and Heidi reach their apartment without having spoken much at all, except to note when a light had changed. It would be different if they had been holding hands, or walking close at all, maybe. Sometimes, physical connection is better than talking. Melanie always loved holding hands with her friends as a kid, not because she ended up a dyke or anything like that but because she loved the feeling of having someone with her. Boys and girls, her parents and grandparents, she’d cling to them, always pleased. Her mom called her “my little tugboat”, even when she had grown out of it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She should really call her. She should really go home. She would, sometime soon. Maybe. She’d drive up to her old home and apologize.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But they were home. Melanie hung her coat up, because Heidi didn’t approve of coats on the floor or hung across chairs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Want me to make you something?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi does not respond. She kicks off her shoes and makes her way into the bathroom, probably to remove her jewelry and makeup. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie thinks about calling her mom. What would she say? “I’m doing fine. I’m making lots of friends. I love being here.” But she doesn’t want to fight. She is drained already, thinking about the fight.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, she goes to the kitchen and checks the pantry. Beans, maybe? Bread and beans? She’s never been one for cooking but Heidi doesn’t, as in, she doesn’t have time. Bread and beans and noodle-os. And cereal. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t want dinner?” Melanie calls. “You should eat.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is a thumping sound. Melanie waits, and is about to seek her out to make sure she’s okay when Heidi enters the room again. She looks muted and pale.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you have alcohol?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie frowns. “I haven’t been drinking.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi shakes her head. She’s taken down her hair, and it falls soft and pale golden, shrouding her expression. “For me,” she says. “I want to drink.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is out of character. “Did something happen today?” Melanie asks, as gently as she can.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you have it?” Heidi snaps. Then, she pushes past Melanie to check the empty pantry. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Melanie says. “None in the house. I can call Anne.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Heidi snarls, and Melanie wants to slap herself. She couldn’t have picked a worse name to call upon for emergency drinks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then Leila, maybe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t want them,” Heidi says. She sways on her feet, though she made the walk from work in heels just fine. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Then what do you want?” Melanie asks. “Talk to me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to be left alone for five fucking seconds!” Heidi says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi never swears. Then again, Heidi doesn’t ask for a drink, either. Heidi shouts, sometimes. Something is wrong with her. Melanie doesn’t want to leave her. But she can’t stay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tell me what happened, and I’ll go,” Melanie says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi groans, a long and guttural sound. Melanie waits, intending to keep her promise but also intending to have this answer. Somewhere else in the building, there are sounds of movement, of laughter. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s over,” Heidi says. Her voice is hollow, totally devoid. Of everything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie at first thinks she means them- that she is breaking up with her. Her shame rises when the first feeling is one of release. A long held breath. Then, pain. A deep and horrible cleaving.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Us?” she whispers.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No!” Heidi says, and Melanie breathes in. “No,” she says again. “No. No. Us? No. My fucking scholarship. The internship.” Her voice breaks. “They’re not going to support me anymore.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie is confused, and then, taken aback. “Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you mean why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why are they taking it away?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t fucking know,” Heidi says. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>I don’t know</span>
  </em>
  <span>.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie’s instinct is to comfort her, but she knows that Heidi doesn’t like that so she tries for a solution. Or, anything. “We can appeal the- the board,” she says, not understanding what she’s trying to say. “I can talk to my group, they would take it. If it’s discrimination because you’re a dyke-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>not</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Heidi says, quickly, hissing like a teapot about to scream. “It’s not that. It’s not- you don’t- I told you, so leave me alone.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Melanie says, without thinking, “we can think this through. You’ve got people on your side.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who? Anne? You?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She pretends </span>
  <em>
    <span>that</span>
  </em>
  <span> doesn’t sting. “Heidi, I swear, we can figure something out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s nothing to figure out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes, there is. We can figure out how to get everything back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why not?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Because I don’t feel like it, Melanie! Because I’m tired!” Heidi’s head trembles, like it's holding up the weight of her grief. “Maybe it was all a waste of time. Everything. Maybe it was a waste of time. I don’t know. I can’t do this right now. I want a drink.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, you don’t,” Melanie says. “You’re just panicking. You should go to bed. Or eat something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi reaches for her and Melanie is there, as always. She falls in the circle of her arms, shaking. Her hands clutch at the edge of Melanie’s shirt collar.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you want?” Melanie asks, again.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Leave me,” Heidi says. “Leave me alone.”</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <b>Heidi, Age 26</b>
</p><p>
  <b>1982</b>
</p><p>
  <span>She’s trying so hard to be nice to her. She can’t stand it, though, how she looks at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi must have missed all the glances Melanie threw at her when she was still in school, too busy with studying to understand how many times a day Melanie turned her sad eyes at her. Her sad and anxious eyes. Her sad and displeased eyes. She sometimes looks at Heidi like she’s a piece of rotting furniture that she needs to let go of but can’t yet. Rotting furniture is a good metaphor, Heidi thinks as she fumbles with the key. A rotting chair. Melanie loves the chair. But she can’t sit in the chair. If she tries to sit in the chair, she’s afraid the chair will break, so she doesn’t even touch it. All she can do is look at it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>In strange ways, Heidi thinks Melanie believes she is the cause for everything that has happened. Melanie is charismatic, but she is sad. People never see it. It’s Heidi’s privilege to see it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Before she can make her fingers cooperate, the door is opening.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie’s hair is down to her shoulders, the longest she’ll allow it. She’s wearing pajama pants and an old shirt that got stretched too big, and she looks so soft Heidi could cry. She can smell her shampoo, her minty toothpaste, the detergent they use.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Where the fuck have you been?” Melanie asks, trying to reach for her and hold the door open with her foot at the same time. Heidi stumbles, but passes her on her way inside. “Are you gonna answer me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Out,” Heidi spits. “I’ve been out.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Obviously. Who’re you getting drunk with?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You jealous?” Heidi says, swallowing hard. She knows she’s the jealous one. She’s not stupid. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m </span>
  <em>
    <span>worried</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m fine,” Heidi says. She remembers to kick off her shoes, but she’s already too far into their apartment for it to count. “I’m fine.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She feels Melanie coming up beside her, probably to try and help her to the bathroom, but she shakes her off. “Don’t touch me!” she says, a little too loud.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie releases her immediately, and Heidi stalks, unsteady as a wounded tiger, towards the kitchen. She starts banging around, looking for a water glass.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s wrong?” Melanie asks. Her voice is soft, concerned. Heidi finds a water glass and slams it into the sink. She turns on the tap. “Heidi, did something happen?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m a dropout,” Heidi says. She turns her dead eyes at Melanie and smiles ruefully. Melanie watches her, careful. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Tonight, did something happen?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I got,” and Heidi takes a gulp of water, “</span>
  <em>
    <span>wasted</span>
  </em>
  <span>.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So what’s wrong?” Melanie asks. “Are you mad at me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are </span>
  <em>
    <span>you </span>
  </em>
  <span>mad at </span>
  <em>
    <span>me</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Heidi asks. She’s spouting nonsense. Or maybe she’s not- she doesn’t care.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Melanie says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Didn’t you say I needed to let loose a little more?” Heidi asks. “Let my hair down?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She reaches out to touch the ends of Melanie’s hair, but misjudges the distance and almost topples forward. Melanie catches her, but the glass slips out of Heidi’s hand and shatters on the floor, near their feet.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck!” Melanie says. Heidi’s head rests on her shoulder; she observes the world from this position for a bit. “Heidi can you get off me? I’ll clean this up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She doesn’t want to get off of her. She is suddenly scared that this is the end, the last time they’ll ever touch. She doesn’t know why.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Heidi,” Melanie says, and Heidi straightens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She makes her way over to the couch, where she flops. The ceiling spins, and Melanie’s smell is inside her nose. She couldn’t distinguish it from her own for so long that it’s shocking, and lovely. It’s like springtime, a hill, a river. It’s like a forest.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>This is the end</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she thinks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can hear Melanie in the kitchen, cleaning up. She listens, heart beating fast. She almost has stage fright.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mel-” she begins, and can’t finish. Her voice is small. “Melanie,” she says, louder this time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m here,” Melanie says. “Are you okay? Do you need to throw up?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I have to-” and again, she can’t finish. Heidi doesn’t want to leave her. She wants Melanie to do it. It’s her right. “I have to tell you. Something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She hopes Melanie isn’t done, but of course Melanie comes before she’s finished cleaning up, caring more about whatever drunken ramble Heidi will confess than the glass on the floor. “I’m here,” she says, and kneels next to Heidi on the couch. Even though she’s mad and Heidi can tell, she keeps her face neutral and pleasant for Heidi’s sake. Melanie only ever gets mad after the hangover’s gone, and by then it is so diminished it’s like she’s only annoyed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>So she has to say it. She has no choice. She should’ve told her anyway, a long time ago.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There were men,” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie’s smile drops. “At the bar?” she says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I saw men while we were together,” Heidi says. “I saw three men. I went on six dates.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She watches Melanie process this. How do you process something like that? If Melanie had said something like that, Heidi would assume she was joking. But Heidi wouldn’t joke about this.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?” Melanie asks, first. Still, her face is neutral.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was set up by school friends. I didn’t want to seem rude, so I said yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This is crueler than the real explanation, which would be something more like: I was terrified of saying no. I was terrified that even the date wouldn’t be enough. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So it was for appearances,” Melanie says. Already, she seems relieved. She seems satisfied. She knows Heidi very well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not all of it,” Heidi says, quickly. More, more is needed. “I also did it because I thought that if I went with them I might- be fixed. Maybe I’d like them and maybe I’d be fixed.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It’s a lie. Is it a lie? It is a lie. She loves her. Even if she hates this thing about her, she loves her more. Otherwise, she wouldn’t be here. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>If she hadn’t given in, that night in the orchard, where would she be? She imagined it. Melanie said “I love you.” Heidi watched her, her eyes reflecting the moon. The stunning surprise of it, those words that she had thought a thousand times coming out of </span>
  <em>
    <span>Melanie</span>
  </em>
  <span>’s mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t say that,” Heidi says. “Don’t say things you don’t mean.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie, intense, dramatic, passionate in the theater of Heidi’s mind. “I do! I do mean it!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi shakes her head and turns away. “No. How could someone as beautiful as you love a wretch like me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Please, Heidi, marry me. Come with me. Build the city.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Moon-eyes. There she stands, amongst the trees. Her hair is splayed and her limbs are tangled. Heidi slithers on her belly towards her. She wraps herself tenderly around her throat and chokes the life from her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t need to be fixed,” Melanie says, quietly. So good. She’s so good. She will forgive even this treachery. She will forgive everything.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi begins to cry. She wishes she could stop, but she can’t bear this anymore. Melanie comes home and tells Heidi about her day, about the paper crafts she is having her students make. She no longer talks about trying everything. Her hair grows longer and longer. She helps Heidi to the bathroom, kindly. She makes her dinner and tea, kindly. She doesn’t ask about the job that never lasts more than a few months, kindly. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m killing you,” Heidi sobs, nearly incoherent. “I’m killing you. Why don’t you leave? Why can’t you leave me, Melete?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She feels her touch her shoulder and she screams. She writhes, trying to burrow into the couch and never come out. She is crying, cannot stop crying, and someone calls her name from a place a few feet down, just under the wet soil.</span>
</p><p> </p><p>
  <span>She has to be the one to leave her. In the end.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie doesn’t speak to her or look at her when she packs up, but she also doesn’t leave. Maybe she knows how strong the pull of her presence is on her. But Heidi doesn’t give in. It’s easier when she doesn’t look at her either.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Since Melanie is not coming to the airport, the last time Heidi sees her is sitting at their kitchen table. Her hands are loose fists, laying like stones on the tabletop. Her mouth is dead when she opens it and says, “I love you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi exhales. “And you know how I feel.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That is it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The job in California is unusual- it falls in her lap almost within a week of her getting there, before she’s even settled in the matchbox that’s meant to sustain her from now on. A call from a friend from med school who graduated before the shitshow went down, another call to a stranger, and then it’s settled. She’s never been one for nursing or live-in care, but everyone seems confident enough in her abilities so she takes it. There’s nothing better to do.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She moves in. It’s a cute little beach house, big but empty save for the old woman. When Heidi sits on the deck she can look out over the ocean and imagine there’s anything beyond it she pleases.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The woman sits often there, a blanket over her legs. She reminds Heidi of what a grandmother is meant to look like, as if plucked from a children’s book and placed in reality. The white hair, the wrinkled cheeks. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“My name is Heidi,” Heidi says. “I’ll be your new care assistant.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Pleased to meet you, Heidi.” The woman extends her hand. “You can call me Demeter.”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>He he he he yeah sorry to end on something so cheesy (and a cliffhanger!) but here's your confirmation that this story is not over yet!! I'm already completely done with the seventh and final part and my plan is maybe to post that in a week? I'm a very impatient person so idk. Probably next Saturday, maybe a day or two earlier.<br/>Sorry for such a downer for a chapter! The next one is happy I promise. <br/>Thank you so so much for reading (and sorry for the long wait between chapters) and stay safe!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
<a name="section0007"><h2>7. America, 1983, or, Melanie and Heidi Fall In Love (One More Time)</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>
  <b>Heidi</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi can admit that she is a frustrating person to be around. It does not take her long to discover that so is Demeter. The sweet old lady veneer slipped off a few months in, and ever since then they’ve been at each other’s throats unrelentingly. It’s a miracle that Heidi hasn’t been unceremoniously fired, but Demeter doesn’t seem like the type to back down from a challenge.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her favorite activity is to watch couples stroll on the beach and make rude and usually totally baseless assumptions about them. Demeter hates joy.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Look at them,” she says, scornfully. “He’s slouching, and she’s bending over backwards trying to get her chest to pop.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi watches the couple pass. The boy is slouching, but the girl isn’t thrusting her chest anywhere. The two of them probably could be as old as Heidi with their ages added up.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“They don’t need a jealous old lady ruining their day at the beach,” Heidi says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m hardly ruining anything. I’m just sitting here, aren’t I?” Demeter squints over at her. “If anyone’s jealous it’s </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span>. You’re getting old with no one in your life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m taking a break from relationships,” Heidi says, stiffly. She doesn’t know how Demeter would react to her announcing she was queer, and she has no intention of finding out.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Sure. Because people are lining up to get in bed with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t discount my looks.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m discounting your personality,” Demeter says, drily. “You couldn’t be nice or think of someone else if your life depended on it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What do you know?” Heidi says. Because she can. Demeter doesn’t know anything, not why she moved to LA nor why she’s staunchly avoiding other people in general. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, Heidi is, for the first time in a long set of years, actually feeling good. She wakes up in the beach house, burns something for breakfast, and goes to watch the ocean curl and crash and reset. Demeter requires no medical care- Heidi is more or less a companion. Which makes sense, because she can’t imagine someone spending time with Demeter unless they were paid to do it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is one thing that mars her vision. There is a bar a few streets down from them. She has to pass it on her way to the grocery store. Heidi hates drinking, only did it when she wanted to be loose and uninhibited. But the bar is one of those special bars that Melanie always tried to get her to come to. Probably filled with people like Anne. People who think “dyke” is a compliment. Short-haired people who wear men’s shirts and would sneer at her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>One night, thinking about people whose names start with M, Heidi became enraged and encouraged. If people whose names start with M can visit those places, why can’t she? She marched down the street and straight into the bar.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Inside, the lights were low, and pulsing. It didn’t smell like a bar back in New York, a little more dusty, she thought. And it was quiet. There weren’t that many people there.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She fled almost immediately.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Later she was furious about that. She didn’t understand it. She still didn’t. She had already given up everything to prove who she was, hadn’t she? She’d stood up during the sixth and final date she’d ever go on with a man who was the son of someone important and told him she </span>
  <em>
    <span>wasn’t</span>
  </em>
  <span> interested in fucking him, now or ever, and that she had to get home to her girlfriend before she started to think the subway had crashed.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her whole body had buzzed on the way home. She’d teared up at least seven times before she reached her door, and even then she felt close to crying. Something like elation or fear was twisting in her chest, trying desperately to break through, and she knew that if she saw Melanie, if she could just see her, everything would be alright in the world.</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>Things don’t end</span>
  </em>
  <span>, she thought. </span>
  <em>
    <span>The world doesn’t end.</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>But she opened the door to their empty apartment. Anne brought Melanie home later, and asked to stay the night. Both of them were giggling like schoolgirls (about what? About </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span>?) and Melanie was more interested in saying nonsense words to make Anne laugh than talking to Heidi. Then, of course, they’d both been thoroughly hungover and sick the day after, and Heidi had cleaned up after them. Melanie didn’t even say bye to her in the morning- she just rolled over in bed and groaned.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>He must have told someone on the board. She doubted it was because she was a lesbian, though that might have marred her work reputation later on. It was probably because she’d told him no when he’d expected to hear yes.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The ache of not becoming a doctor had faded with time. Besides, if she had become one, who would be living in this cottage with Demeter, watching the sun set and seep its colors into the water? The waves were rough on the edge of the coast, but way out on the horizon line the water looked flat and smooth as a mirror. She felt an ache when she looked at it. This impossible place that she’d never reach- even if she went out to sea she’d never find that smooth black line at the edge of the world.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <b>Melanie</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Anne lights a cigarette while Melanie bites the insides of her cheeks. Anne’s whole apartment smells like shit, for whatever reason, so she burns candles and incense that make the whole room hazy. Melanie sometimes thinks she could get high off of the fumes. But, of course, Anne has other ways to get high.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It wasn’t bad,” Melanie says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anne sighs, frustrated. “You’re not supposed to say that, Melanie. You’re supposed to say ‘it was a hot and sweaty and sexy great time’.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It was a hot and sweaty and sexy great time.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Just tell me she wasn’t blonde.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She wasn’t blonde.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you saying that because I told you to or because she wasn’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She </span>
  <em>
    <span>was </span>
  </em>
  <span>blonde,” Melanie says. “Lots of people are blonde.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anne holds up her hand and takes a long drag from her cigarette. “If this was your first official post-breakup sex I could excuse blondeness. But now you need to move on to sunnier shores.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What’s sunnier than a blonde?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“There’s something wrong with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie scoffs. “I’m having sex. I kept my job. I eat regularly.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“All those things are good,” Anne says. “But you’re still waiting for her to come back.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not,” Melanie says, her voice shrinking. She is. Every day, she thinks about what she’ll say when Heidi comes home. It changes all the time- sometimes, she’s sweet and grateful. Sometimes, she screams and sets her on fire. Then she extinguishes her and is sweet and grateful.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Luckily, I have a plan for you,” Anne says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Right. She probably planned this from the minute Melanie called and told her that she was coming over to talk about the date (it was a </span>
  <em>
    <span>date</span>
  </em>
  <span>- what could be more healthy and healing than </span>
  <em>
    <span>dating again</span>
  </em>
  <span>?). Anne shuffles around the shit she has strewn everywhere, pulling papers until she finds the right one and returns.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Here,” she says. “It’s an art contest.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie frowns. “Am I twelve?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shut the fuck up. Not that kind. Exhibition work, and they’ll take submissions from around the country. It’s for young artists.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not young,” Melanie says. “I’m also not an artist.” Anymore.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re plenty young. Why don’t you put together a portfolio?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t have anything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yet.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can’t make me, unfortunately,” Melanie says. She stands, annoyed. Why does Anne always do stuff like this? She already knows how bad it would be. She doesn’t need </span>
  <em>
    <span>another</span>
  </em>
  <span> crushing defeat.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anne catches her arm as she passes towards the door. “Mel. You know this isn’t good for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What? Dating again?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You didn’t even cry after she left,” Anne says. “She’s not coming back. She lives on the other side of the country now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>What do you know about us</span>
  </em>
  <span>? Melanie wants to say. </span>
  <em>
    <span>What do you know about the promises we made</span>
  </em>
  <span>?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Instead, she smiles. “I’ll shed a few tears tonight. For you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She comes home to her apartment and sits alone. For some reason, the more she thinks about Anne sitting in her stupid scented apartment pitying her the angrier she feels. She thinks about Anne deciding what she needs, how she should feel. An art contest? Melanie hasn’t done that stuff in years- no pictures, no paintings. She demonstrates art projects for her students, but she’s an art teacher. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Fucking Anne. Melanie stands up and goes to find her old supplies, shoved into one of the boxes that they stacked up to make stools and tables. There are the brushes, the cracked paints she used the money her mother gave her to buy. Other stuff, kid stuff. Stuff she stole from the art room in high school, thinking about how she’d make masterpieces when she got to New York.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Suddenly, she recalls packing this, with Heidi’s help. Heidi holds up a broken crayon and Melanie dutifully takes it and throws it in with the others.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You won’t need crayons,” Heidi says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t know that. Maybe crayons will be the key component to my first exhibition. Maybe it will be a dozen paintings about how stupid it is people underestimate crayons.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi doesn’t laugh but she smiles with the corners tucked in. “Come on.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Come on,” Melanie mimics. “I’ll draw you a portrait in crayons.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“In broken crayons?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’d like to see that,” Heidi says drily. But she’s smiling. Because they both believe it, maybe. They both believe there will be an exhibition. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie smiles now because it’s a happy memory. And all of a sudden, she is crying. She isn’t even aware of it until it becomes hard to breathe, a tightness overtaking her chest. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She starts to laugh- she doesn’t know why she’s sobbing, it’s not sad- but it comes out weird and choked. Why? It’s okay. Everything’s okay.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She should’ve unpacked this when Heidi was here. She wants to see Heidi’s reaction. Does she remember? Would she ask for her portrait, now, ten years later?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Or would she be lost in drink, or thought, or whatever job she’d recently quit? Would she tell her to leave again? Would she leave again?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Fuck you,” she says, laughing and crying. “Fuck you. Fuck you!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She says it at the floors and the walls and the crayons. She says it to herself, to Anne, to Heidi. To Heidi and Heidi and Heidi. Heidi, fourteen years old, standing against the wall of the rollerdisco with her hair in braids and her mouth turned all the way down, so dissatisfied with the world. </span>
  <em>
    <span>Look at me. Do I bore you? Do I make you mad? Do you love me yet?</span>
  </em>
</p><p>
  <span>What does she want?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Anne rises like a phantom in Melanie’s mind. “Melanie, what do </span>
  <em>
    <span>you</span>
  </em>
  <span> want?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want for her to be happy. I want us to have an easy life.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But she’s not here,” Anne says. “What do you want?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She can’t think. She can’t think of it yet. “I want Heidi to look at me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But she’s not here. What do you want?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie gasps for air. “I want to make something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t know.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess that doesn’t matter anyway,” Anne says, even though she is not real. “Just make anything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is paper in the box, with the art supplies, textured and expensive. Melanie’s mother had spent so much money on it. Why had she done that? She could puzzle over it later- there were so many things she had to do but she has to do this now.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She picks up the crayon.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She draws.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <b>Heidi</b>
</p><p>
  <span>There is a woman who works at the grocery store. Heidi knows her name- its Mandy, it says so on her nametag. She is always making eye contact with her and smiling. Heidi smiles back, but she also feels like if she says something Mandy will say something back and if Mandy is really sending her the silent message she thinks she is she doesn’t want to hear it. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still, she cannot prevent it when she is coming down the street and sees Mandy, out of her grocer’s uniform and in something else, leaning against the wall of the bar and smoking. Heidi doesn’t notice her from far enough away to prevent them from meeting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh! Grocery girl!” Mandy says, as if it is not she who is grocery girl.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m sorry?” Heidi says, playing it cool.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You come in to get groceries. Every Friday. You’re new in the neighborhood, right?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’ve been here for a few months,” Heidi says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Living alone?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No, with an old lady,” Heidi says, stupidly. Luckily, Mandy laughs.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You should really come out some night. I don’t work on Thursdays if you’d like to meet up.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi points at the bar. “Here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yeah!” Mandy says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t really know if it’s really my scene,” Heidi says, infusing apology in her tone.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Aw, come on.” Mandy gives her a big wink and a smile. Anyone passing by and seeing it would notice- it was like a stage wink. “I think it is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi’s heart drops into her stomach. Lower, actually. Maybe her bowels. “Excuse me?” she squeaks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mandy’s face falls. “Oh my god, I’m so sorry- I didn’t mean to freak you out!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You can tell?” Heidi says, before she can stop herself.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mandy’s mouth quirks a bit at the corner. “I mean- yeah. I can tell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi stares at her for a solid ten seconds, then turns tail and runs back to Demeter’s place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Naturally, the old lady is in a bad mood. “What are you doing slamming doors around here?” she calls from another room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi, flushed, rushes towards her voice, dropping her keys on the table. “Demeter,” she is already saying, trying to crowd the words out. “Demeter. I have a question.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter is sitting in one of her many rooms, a magazine drooping on her lap. “What?” she asks, voice nasty.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Can you tell I’m a dyke?” Heidi asks, breathless.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She waits. Demeter’s eyes narrow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What kind of question is that?” she asks. For a single, terrible moment, Heidi thinks she means to tell her that her employment is over, but then she says, “of course I can tell.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi gapes. “</span>
  <em>
    <span>How?</span>
  </em>
  <span>” she demands. Uselessly, she tugs at her hair, demonstrating its length.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter waves a gnarled hand over her. “Look at you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi looks down at herself. She looks very normal. She </span>
  <em>
    <span>thinks</span>
  </em>
  <span>. All her clothes are from the women's section. She’s wearing a dainty necklace. Too dainty? Maybe if her jewelry was more obvious, more pronounced-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s nothing to do with your clothes,” Demeter says, drily. “Don’t worry about that. “It’s just a commonality. Recognizing patterns. I’m sure you’ve noticed other women and thought they were lesbian on instinct.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Had she? Mandy, she had, but Mandy had been eyeing her like she was her lunch. There had been a woman in school who was always smiling at her but was too skittish to talk.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Don’t dykes usually have short hair?” Heidi says, a bit desperately.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You don’t.” Demeter cackles. “I don’t.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi gapes at her. Demeter gapes right back, in imitation.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re learning lots today,” Demeter says, now amused, her bad mood forgotten. “I knew the moment I met you what you were.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But I’m not-” Heidi begins, and then stops.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe you’re one of the types who thinks ‘dyke’ is a big step away from what you are.” Demeter sighs. “Perhaps. But we all have the same defect, don’t we?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Defect,” Heidi repeats. She blushes. The way Demeter had said it had been in jest, but coming from Heidi’s mouth it sounds as sharp as a slur. Is that what she thought of herself? </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She shakes off her confusion. “You’re a lesbian?” she says. “You must be just as jealous as me.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not jealous. I have my own sordid past to contend with.” Demeter raises her eyebrows at her. “Bad breakup on the east coast?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shut up,” Heidi snaps and stalks from the room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She goes to meet with Mandy, though. On Thursday, she puts on jeans and a t-shirt, instead of a button-up, and she goes to the bar.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mandy waits at the counter with a few friends. Heidi tries to place them within the conventions of the girls from California she met from school, but they all seem so different. Some of them are tipsy, but none out of their minds. They greet Heidi, some with a handshake that the others laugh at.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Didn’t think you’d come,” Mandy says, while Heidi waits for her drink. She watches Mandy from the corner of her eye. Maybe people with names that start with M are alright. But not tonight. She can’t even think of that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t think I’d come,” Heidi says. “Not much for crowds.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But you’re so charming!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi laughs. She must be convincing if Mandy’s willing to say that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to-” she starts, and pauses. Is it appropriate to have this conversation with someone she has just met? “I want to meet more… lesbians.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mandy laughs. “This is the place to do it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean-” and Heidi’s drink arrives. She stares at it, and then doesn’t take it. She wants all her senses. If this is a new world, she wants to experience all of it. “I want to stop being afraid. And you don’t seem afraid.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mandy smiles. “Of course we’re afraid. Everyone is.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Not Anne. Or- maybe Anne. It’s not like she knew her. Heidi tries to remember this. “So how do you…” She waves at the whole room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Mandy shrugs. “I guess I got angry. At the world, you know, for making me think I couldn’t be a real, happy person until I was their kind of person. And then I thought, what’s a way to get back at them?” She points to herself and grins. “Real. Happy.” She points at Heidi. “Real.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi returns her smile. “Happy.”</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <b>Melanie</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie should have called her, but it’s too late now. She supposes she could run to Heidi’s mother’s house and ask to use the phone, call her mother and say, “I’ll be stopping by soon!” and then come back.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Of course, she knows that Heidi’s mother isn’t there anymore. Good riddance to her. She had never once called them, over the whole time when Heidi was in school. Melanie didn’t know why. She had never understood their relationship.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Meanwhile, her mother- </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Sometimes she remembers the good things. But sometimes she remembers her yelling, screaming, wailing. She can’t even tell what’s real of those memories and what’s exaggeration.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She knocks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>For a long time she stands there, fidgeting on the doorstep. Will she recognize her? She has to. It hasn’t been that long.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Has she called? She doesn’t know. The phone in her apartment sometimes skips calls, and it has no answering machine. Had she been trying all this time?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>The door opens.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There she is. There is her mother, looking older but still very much the same.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She puts her hand over her mouth. How very dramatic. “Melanie,” she says, breathlessly. “You’re- what are you doing here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>An art project</span>
  </em>
  <span>. “Can’t I come see you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You haven’t,” she says, and her voice is sharp and bitter. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know,” Melanie says. Already her voice is sliding, as if along a blade, peeling back to an awful teenage drawl. She shakes it off. “I know. I’m sorry, Mommy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She steps inside, and her mother waits for her to carefully take her shoes off before she hugs her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie walks through her house carefully, treading through shadows and ghosts. Here is the spot where she fell and bruised her back when she was eight. Here is where her cat used to sit in the sunlight, before he died. Here is where she stood and told her mother that she was moving to New York after high school with a friend.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>As if reading her thoughts, her mother asks, “how’s your friend?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Heidi?” Melanie says, and her voice pitches up wildly at the second syllable. “She’s okay. I mean, she moved to California.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Would’ve thought you’d gone with her.” Her mother walked through the kitchen, and there was the fridge, the sink, the counter she’d sat at mixing spices in water and calling it magic. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Too much sun.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s not what I meant. You always seemed so close.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie closes her eyes. She doesn’t want to talk about Heidi. “How have you been?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well,” her mother says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>They reach the living room, and her mother takes a seat. Melanie copies her, trying not to slouch. She doesn’t want to disappoint her. She might have not called, she might have stayed away, but the least she can do is show she has improved in any way.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But she hasn’t. Even before her mother asks her, she knows she will have nothing to say or show. She still feels eighteen years old. And that is terrifying.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Mom, I’m doing an art contest,” she says, quickly. No cross-examination. No questions at all. “I mean, I’m trying to make some art pieces. And I wanted them to be about you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mother raises an eyebrow. “Ten years, and you came back to use me for a painting?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not </span>
  <em>
    <span>use </span>
  </em>
  <span>you,” Melanie says, quickly. “I mean- I just want to- I want to go back to my younger self. Um, it’s like, I want to make a series of paintings with my younger self and older self. A double image. And when I think about my past I think about you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>This does nothing to help. “Your </span>
  <em>
    <span>past</span>
  </em>
  <span>?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“By which I mean-” Melanie tacks on, “I want to bring my past into my future. And by bringing you, um, into the future with me I can do that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mother leans back. She knows she has not done a good enough job at explaining it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What exactly do you want?” her mother asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to make something.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And you need me to do it?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Melanie answers. This is truth. “No. But I want you to be a part of it. And a part of my life. Again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Finally, her mother yields. She smiles. “What do you want us to do, little tugboat?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Her mother cuts her hair this time- she asks to, when Melanie casually brings up how she’s been meaning to. Melanie allows her, sitting on the edge of the bathtub and trying not to fidget. She stares at the walls, remembering. Here is the spot where she got her first period, and where she cried about it. Here is the spot where she stared and stared at herself, trying to understand what was wrong. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>And now, back again, here is the place where her mother cuts her hair boy-short with a pair of scissors. When she paints, and she will paint, when she gets the chance, she will paint this moment. She will submit to an art contest that her best friend asked her to submit to. She will talk in a personal statement about reconciliation. And she won’t need Heidi. She can love her, but that has nothing to do with it.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <b>Heidi</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Her name is Cate. She shows up one day, wearing a wide-brimmed black hat, looking exactly like a Halloween witch from a picture book. The first thing she does when she sees Heidi is sneer, “so you’ve come crawling,” and then to brush by her into the house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Who’s at the door?” Demeter calls from the other room.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Hecate finishes glaring at her and strides towards the sound. For an old lady she’s incredibly spry, and she crosses the house in minutes. Heidi hears the slam of the door across the house.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi waits for hours, but whatever they’re talking about must be important because Cate only emerges for dinner. She looks disgruntled and is moving significantly slower.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Heidi, this is my friend… Cate,” Demeter says as she sits down. “Cate, this is Heidi. She’ll forgive you being unpleasant. She’s unpleasant herself.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cate turns to Heidi. “Pleased to make your acquaintance. Cate is not my real name. Cate does not even </span>
  <em>
    <span>sound</span>
  </em>
  <span> like my real name.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter waves a dismissive hand at her. “Yes, yes. But she’ll call you Cate.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Are you going to be staying here?” Heidi asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“For now,” Cate says. “I am trying to convince your lovely friend Demeter to not make a very bad decision.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s my life,” Demeter says, poking her food.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cate looks disgusted. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>After dinner, Heidi passes Demeter on her way to the dishwasher. “Sordid past?” she asks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter smiles, a little wickedly. “Something like that.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>That night, Heidi and Mandy and Mandy’s friends go down to the beach. Heidi has never been here at night, and slipping into the water feels slightly dangerous. Though it is silly, she can’t help but imagine enormous, pale sea monsters lurking under the surface of the water to swallow her. And her silliness makes the whole experience more exciting. When they emerge, shivering, from the sea, Heidi feels incredibly alive. It makes her miss Melanie.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It makes her miss being a kid with her. Riding out to orchards at night, sneaking through her window. Loving her so much she couldn’t breathe. She thought adulthood would be just more of the same, more of that freedom. All it had been was just rinse and repeat on the same day, the same days. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>But now it is opening. Now </span>
  <em>
    <span>she </span>
  </em>
  <span>is opening. Something about that city, that apartment, had made her want to hide. Right now, she feels like she can call God down, stare him in the eyes, and tell him exactly what she is. One word isn’t enough, but she can still name it.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She comes home to Cate sitting ramrod straight in a chair at the kitchen table. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Hi,” she says, dripping onto Demeter’s nice hardwood floors. For some reason, the sight of Cate makes her cringe away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m not the one who did it,” Cate says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I didn’t do it. I just finished you off. You can thank Demeter for everything you’ve gone through.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi scowls. “Demeter has been nothing but kind to me since I got here,” she lies, loyal enough to her to not like whatever it is Cate is suggesting.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cate rolls her eyes. Then, she pushes something across the table towards Heidi. It’s dark enough that Heidi has to squint to see.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It’s an invitation to an art exhibition arriving next week,” Cate says, as if this should somehow already be obvious to her. “I think you should go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Somehow the idea of this strange, unlikeable woman recommending her art shows is more confusing than repellent. Heidi reaches to take the paper.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Why?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want you to release her.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m working for Demeter,” Heidi says. This is not a lie, but it feels like one.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cate squints at her. “She told me you had forgotten,” she says, “but you cannot honestly believe that you’re the one who has done anything but make her life difficult.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And who are you to her?” Heidi demands. “An old flame? What are you doing here?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cate startles back, and then looks away. “I want her to join me when I go,” she says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi says nothing. She knows that Cate must mean to take Demeter away, but she also feels there is something more. Take her with her in death?</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“That’s her choice.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know that.” Cate shakes her hand dismissively at her. “Go. Show her how happy you can be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi leaves more confused than ever. She keeps the art flier. This, she doesn’t understand.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <b>Melanie</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Anne assures Melanie a million times that there’s no way Heidi will come to her show. “With all the people in LA? It’s not going to happen, Mel. Just ignore her and focus on staying calm.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>But Melanie’s not calm. She walks into the exhibition hall with her mother, presents to a tiny crowd, and lets them wander around her paintings. She stands trembling in front of a portrait of her mother done in crayons, thinking about impossible things happening. There is something in her that </span>
  <em>
    <span>knows</span>
  </em>
  <span>. An instinct, maybe. Or deja vu. Certainty. This is why she is not surprised when she speaks.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I guess you were right.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She closes her eyes. She can barely breathe. “About?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“About the crayons. They were important.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie turns to her. Heidi’s wearing a dress. This is what she registers. She is looking at her face. Her hair is loose around her shoulders.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There’s a strange doubling; for all the time Melanie has spent in her hometown, she couldn’t help but think of Heidi as she was. Now, she sees her as she is. A woman, and a girl superimposed over each other. It could be a good painting. Melanie can think things like this now without embarrassment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“How do you like the show?” Melanie asks, like this is normal. Like they’re not meeting for the first time in a year in a strange, small warehouse surrounded by paintings of a woman they both know well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love it,” Heidi says. “You’re suited to this.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Being an artist?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi waves a hand. “You were an artist. You’ve been an artist all along. I mean exhibitions.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was an artist all along?” Melanie asks. “And you never told me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Shut up,” Heidi says. She swallows her smile, but then she lets it appear. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She’d missed her so much.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t forgive you,” Melanie says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>A little pain registers in Heidi’s eyes, but she nods composedly. “I know. It’s okay.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I don’t understand it.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi swallows and Melanie can hear it. “I needed to change.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“And have you?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes,” Heidi says. Then, “no. Kind of.” She gives a nervous little laugh. “I guess that’s for you to decide.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you want me to take you out for a test run or something?” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>She says it as a joke, but Heidi turns red. “No,” she says. “No. I don’t want to go back to the way things were.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie knows she means New York after the scholarships had fallen through. Melanie consoling and Heidi unhealing.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me neither,” Melanie says. She fidgets. “It was bad. I was bad.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You were good,” Heidi says, her voice despairing. “You were so good.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But it was bad for you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I was drowning,” Heidi says. “I felt like the whole world had come down on me. Like I’d been judged and found unworthy. And I had no friends. And when I looked into the next month and the next year of my life there was nothing but the same.” Heidi steps closer and touches Melanie’s arm. She doesn’t even glance around to see who’s watching. “You couldn’t help me. You couldn’t have done anything, because I wasn’t willing to do anything.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Couldn’t I have gone with you to California?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi laugh-chokes. “Then we wouldn’t have this gallery. And your mom wouldn’t be here. I don’t regret what I did. I regret that I didn’t tell you why.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie looks at her face, so beloved to her, for so many years. If Heidi had told her that she was drowning, there in the apartment with the shades drawn, what would she have done?</span>
</p><p>
  <em>
    <span>I would have tried to swim for your air</span>
  </em>
  <span>, Melanie thought. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>It had been exhausting to live and breathe for this girl, no matter how much she loved her. She’d spent so long as one part of Melanie-and-Heidi. And now they were Melanie and Heidi. Standing next to each other, watching their old years go by, skeptical judges of their own character.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi lets go of Melanie’s arm and extends her hand. “Friends?” she asks, cautiously. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Friends,” Melanie says. She takes her hand.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <b>Heidi</b>
</p><p>
  <span>Cate is leaving. Demeter is disgruntled about it, and Heidi isn’t sure how to feel. When she asks Demeter about it, all she does is sigh, “she’s so stubborn.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi watches her for any sign of what she’s thinking. “Are you going with her?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“With </span>
  <em>
    <span>her</span>
  </em>
  <span>?” Demeter snorts. “No. Why? Things are finally heating up in </span>
  <em>
    <span>your</span>
  </em>
  <span> life. Why would I leave now?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Things aren’t heating up. We’re just friends.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Right.” Demeter yawns. “Together since you were seventeen, recently reconciled, real good friends.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>If Heidi weren’t so relieved that Demeter was going to stay she would swat at her. She is right, in some ways. Things aren’t exactly heating up, but she likes having Melanie with her again. It’s like being kids again, falling right back into their old rhythms. Heidi pushes and Melanie pushes back. They go everywhere, try all the gay bars. Of course she loves Mandy and her friends, flirts ceaselessly with them all. Not Heidi, though. The closest they come to flirting is grabbing the other’s arm to tell them something.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Still-</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cate interrupts Heidi’s thoughts by barging in through the door. She’s got her hat back on and her scowl in place.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Heidi,” she says, “I’d like a word.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Leave her alone,” Demeter says. “You’ve got nothing important to say.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cate marches over and grabs Heidi’s arm. For an old lady, her grip is strong as steel. Heidi shoots Demeter a helpless look as she is led away.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They go into the study, which has never been used for studying. This is Heidi’s favorite room in the house. It overlooks the ocean, presumably so one could sit at the huge mahogany desk and stare out to see in between books. Now, they stand in the middle of the room. The midday sun falls over them, not quite golden bright.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I told you to release her,” Cate says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“She’s staying here of her own accord,” Heidi says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cate makes a frustrated noise. “She’s staying because you insist on chastity and decency instead of just putting an end to this buffering period!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi flushes. “Demeter’s not tied here because of my love life. I don’t understand-”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cate seizes her by the arms. Heidi yelps, suddenly frightened. Cate’s eyes bulge wildly as she spits out her words. “There are things you can’t understand. Release her. Show her you’ve found happiness. It has been too long, and you are wasting time! We are running out of time!”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Time for what?” Heidi manages to ask. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is a long moment. Cate does not step back, does not release her, but it’s almost like something has broken over and open on her wrinkled face. “To… to be together.” Cate’s voice mellows, softens. “Why can’t </span>
  <em>
    <span>we</span>
  </em>
  <span> be together?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi looks at her, and she no longer looks like something wicked come to take her happiness. She looks as Heidi looks, as Melanie, and Anne, and Mandy look. Only human. Lonely.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She leaves the study, and Demeter stands there. Obviously, she was listening in, though she tries briefly to play it off as her just passing by.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Demeter,” Heidi says. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter gives her a smile that is not quite genuine.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“It is alright,” Heidi says. “To go.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Demeter closes her eyes, as if Heidi has given her permission to end a long and arduous task. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>The house is sold. Demeter does not seem to want anything, and by the time they finish she carries almost no luggage. She plants a kiss on Heidi’s cheek and tells her, “be happy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I will,” Heidi says. She means it. She means to.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I never told you,” Demeter says, “how you remind me of my daughter.” </span>
</p><p>
  <span>Obviously, Heidi can’t help crying at that.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Cate says nothing. She nods at Heidi, and reaches tentatively for Demeter’s hand. Her awkwardness endears Heidi just a little bit further to her. She doesn’t understand them, either of them. She wishes them well.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>After seeing them off, Heidi and Melanie mean to go to the beach but end up just going to Melanie’s apartment. She swears up and down that she hasn’t moved to LA for Heidi, and Heidi believes her; they both seem better here. There is more open space, more freedom. Plus, Melanie has endeared herself to members of the art world, and the opportunities that could present are too much to abandon. Anne is also talking about moving down, and Heidi tells her over the phone that she should. “I want to introduce you to someone,” she says, and Anne groans because that is something Anne does when talking to friends.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>They sit in Melanie’s apartment. Melanie makes her popcorn on the stove while they listen to music. Melanie suggests a movie and Heidi declines. “I don’t need to take my mind off it,” she says. “I’ll see her again.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Maybe not soon. But Heidi has a feeling that Demeter will return, and she wants to make her proud. This is what she is doing at Melanie’s apartment.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie comes with the bowl of popcorn and sits beside her. They are lined up arm to arm and thigh to thigh. This is what will be difficult. This is something Heidi has never done. She has always relied on Melanie to bridge the gap, to say what she means so she can follow.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>She lays her head on Melanie’s shoulder. Melanie lets her.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I’m happy,” Heidi says. “I’m really happy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“So am I.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Not just right now, but most of the time.” Heidi hums a little laugh. “Especially right now.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Me too.” Melanie’s fingers twitch on her lap and Heidi reaches over and takes her hand. She remembers the first time they were ever close, gliding across the roller disco floor. She clung to Melanie, scared of falling, scared of everything. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I love you,” Heidi says. Finally. “I’m happy and I love you. I hurt you because I was afraid and I’m still afraid but I’m going to try not to be.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie says nothing. Heidi closes her eyes. She is scared but the fear is secondary. It will always be there. “I want to wake up next to you. I want to make you breakfast when we have the time. I want to drink coffee and look at the ocean with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Should I be writing this down?” Melanie asks, smiling. Heidi can hear that she is smiling.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’re ruining my moment, let me finish,” Heidi says, reaching over so she can take her other hand. Their arms are crossed over each other’s, almost like an embrace. “I want to go rollerskating with you. I want to learn how to rollerskate better than you and embarrass you in front of all our friends.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I knew you had an ulterior motive back when we were fourteen,” Melanie says. Now she’s crying. Heidi laughs, remembering. She’d been so dumb. They’d both wasted so much time.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to be with you. I want to come to your art shows and say, ‘my girlfriend made that’. I want to be with you. I want to build a city with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Ambitious.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I want to be with you.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>There is a pause. Heidi wishes she could freeze it, here, some song playing in the background, the popcorn on the table, and Melanie, and her. Heidi lifts her head off of Melanie’s shoulder and looks at her, at her moon-dark eyes. </span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Do you want to say anything?” Heidi asks, raising her eyebrows, and her tears fall in her mouth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I know what I want,” Melanie says, and she leans down to kiss her.</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>2005</span>
</p><p>
  
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi wants to go hiking, and Melanie wants to take pictures. The compromise- Heidi picks the spot, a trail that runs through towering pine trees and mountains, and every fifteen minutes Melanie will request a break so she can photograph Heidi and the scenery to high heaven, and Heidi has to indulge her because that’s what one does on their wedding anniversary, even on their twentieth.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>It is on one of these breaks when Heidi sits on a rock that Melanie tells her to get up so she can frame a shot with it. “It looks like two people with their arms around each other, see?” Melanie says. “Geological lovers.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span> Heidi squints. “You’re right. It’s creepy.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I think it’s sweet. Wouldn’t you like to be frozen in a rock with me?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“No,” Heidi says, and Melanie squawks. “I </span>
  <em>
    <span>mean</span>
  </em>
  <span>,” Heidi adds, “I would rather be doing something interesting for the rest of eternity with you. Floating around, maybe.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Maybe we’ll be gods when we die,” Melanie suggests.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You’d be the god,” Heidi says. “I’d be… the mortal that you mess around with.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Oh, you were thinking something like greek gods?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“What were you thinking about?”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Melanie closes her eyes. “I always thought that something truly divine would lack name and form and purpose.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“But we’d float around.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Yes.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>Heidi smiles. Melanie takes one more photo before she lets Heidi sit down, and she joins her as she doles out trail mix. Here, the wind is sweet as it blows through the pine, carrying birdcalls and the immensity of nature amongst an industrial world. Heidi takes Melanie’s hand.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I feel like I’ve been here before,” Melanie says.</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“You say that about a lot of places.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“I mean it, this time. We were both there.”</span>
</p><p>
  <span>“Well, then,” Heidi says. She squeezes her hand. “Aren’t you glad we had the chance to be here together, again?”</span>
</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Notes for the Chapter:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
          <p>That's all folks!<br/>Literally who would’ve thought when I wrote a seven-thousand word long greek mythological angst-fest after my fourth re-read of Song of Achilles I would make it to the end of this bitch. WOW! And who would’ve thought people would read it. DOUBLE WOW!<br/>I’m going to get a little crazy with this end note since this is probably my favorite fic I’ve ever written (and possibly my favorite thing? Idk idk i’m feeling all sentimental) so here goes. The genesis for this idea was that i wanted to do a series of lesbian period pieces with the same couple, but i was too nervous to write original fiction because then it would be like well WHY are you doing this? How can you monetize this? Which is basically how i see most of the stuff i write and its kind of a big cockblock on, you know, writing stuff that doesn’t really have a deeper meaning? So I was like, well I just did that weird fairytale thing with the portrait girls so why don’t I go back to that, and so I planned the different time periods and got cracking. Obviously, not a very smooth process or consistent update schedule, and i realized once i started that i absolutely HATE doing research of any kind which slowed me down further, but i kept going and people seemed to like it and so i kept going and whoop diddly doop here we are today.<br/>I think I sort of got started feeling angry about all the historical fiction romance i read that is decidedly Not Lesbian, and why, when they are lesbian, the girls sort of blend together so I really wanted to do something where the characters remained distinct or something (though I make no excuses for ch. 4 lmao i kinda dropped the ball on that one) and so that’s kind of what kept me going even though there were whole months where this existed on the absolute back-burner of my mind. Also, WOW, all of your comments helped me out, like, I’d read them when I was feeling unenthused and to have physical proof that people were not only reading but enjoying this was a miracle. Like, I don’t even know what to say. You don’t know how much it meant to me (because i get too anxious to respond to them- literally don’t understand that since I have no problem posting, but i digress). Thank you thank you thank you.<br/>From here onward I think… Idk! I sort of planned for this to be the final fic I posted in plof, but I’m not exactly sure. If I do come back I promise whatever I write will be happy with absolutely no sorrow whatsoever!!! (just kidding lmao but I think i'm done with sad endings for now)<br/>Once again big THANK YOU for reading!!! See you next time!</p>
        </blockquote></div></div>
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